What is the difference between a Facebook Profile and a Facebook Business Page?

Tweet

Facebook is now a serious business communications platform. Many of us have, at some stage, had a love hate relationship with this global phenomenon which now boasts in excess of 600 million active users. Reason enough to take this very seriously as a business communications platform.

Recent changes to the administration structure of Facebook have made using business pages easier and more practical. Despite this change, one of the most common queries I still encounter is confusion over the difference between a Facebook Profile and a Facebook Page. This question is usually backed up by a fear of confusing one’s personal life with their business life which is a valid consideration. I’ve written about this before but it’s always good to remind ourselves of this important detail.

Put as simply as possible a profile is for a person (you) and a page is for a business.

Facebook Profile:
This is your personal page, it is how you log on to Facebook. It is here where you connect with your friends, post comments, pictures and the videos that you want to share with your own network. While some serious consideration and attention needs to be given to your privacy settings which dictate who can see your updates, i.e. Friends only, friends of friends, or anyone, for all intents and purposes this is your own personal space. I do however refrain from using the word “private” because Facebook will never be that.

Facebook Business Page:
This is your business persona. Administration access to this page is via your personal Facebook Profile but otherwise it has no relationship or public visibility to your personal information and updates. The recent addition of the “Use Facebook as a Page” link in the “Account” menu means you can do just that. By switching from your personal profile to your business page it allows you to update and administer the page as well as visit other pages, such as clients and associates and “like” their page in this form rather than as your personal profile as required previously.

For those of you who have erroneously or deliberately created a profile as a business, you have breached the terms and conditions of Facebook and risk having the profile permanently removed without warning. I would suggest that you cut your losses, set up a Business Page, notify your existing friends that the new page exists and put things right by removing the profile. Be sure you have a correct administration link to your page because removing all administrators from a page literally orphans it in cyberspace with no way of reconnecting to it again.