Setting Up Your Business Page On Facebook

All the experts tell small business owners that they must take advantage of the benefits of a Social Media Strategy and, with over 750 million members, a Facebook Page is vital.

But, without attending a social media course, for many, the very act of creating their own page can be a problem from the start because there seem to be several types of pages - the personal profile, the business page, the community page, the group page.

Personal Profile or Business Page

The most common mistake is to set up your business on a personal profile and you see this a lot on Facebook. It's easy to spot because you have friends instead of 'likes'. Personal profiles are for people and they have friends, pages are for businesses which people can then like.

Another often seen error is to create a personal profile with one email and then create a business page with a second email log-in because they don't want their Facebook friends to know they are associated with the business.

One of the golden rules of Facebook is that you can only have one email login. This should operate your personal profile and, from there, you can administer any business pages or groups that you have set up.

So, you create your personal profile and then use the 'create a page' facility whilst you are logged in as yourself. The page you have created will then show you as an 'admin' and you can also invite other friends or likers of your page to be admins too. You can then switch between using Facebook as yourself or as your Business Page. But no one needs to know that your two accounts are connected, unless you tell them. The admin panel does not show unless the person viewing is already an admin of that page.

Changing A Personal Profile to a Business Page

Of course, the big question is what to do once you realise that your business page has been set up on a personal profile?

Well, Facebook now offer the chance to merge your that personal profile into a proper business page without losing all your current 'friends', who are transposed into 'likes' during the process. The down side is that you do lose any information or pictures that you have uploaded, although these can be saved by downloading them as an archive before you make the change. The log in details will remain the same until you delete the account.

You can then make your main personal profile an admin so that you can access the business page from your personal login and delete the old one.

Which is where there is another area of confusion - delete or deactivate?

Deactivate Your Facebook Account

Sometimes people go away on holiday or for longer periods of time and will not be able to access their Facebook account. To avoid having unsavoury things posted on their wall in their absence, they deactivate their account for a period of time. All the pictures and information will be saved and stored by Facebook but will not be available for others to access online - until you reactivate your account.

Delete Your Facebook Account

As in the case above, where you have made an account for a personal profile that should have been a business page, there are times when you need to delete a Facebook account. It could just be that you don't want to be involved any more. Facebook have the facility to delete your account upon request.


------

Learn how to use Facebook Pages as part of your Social Media Strategy
with a Birmingham or Southend Social Media Course