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Why you cannot use a facebook personal profile as a business page.

April 19th, 2011 | Posted by martinbrossman in Facebook - (0 Comments)

Martin BrossmanAnother question is: Why it does not help your business to use a personal profile as a business page.

First of all using a personal profile as a business page is against the Facebook terms of operation and may at sometime just be shut down with the loss of all  your “friends”. See Facebook’s terms of operation: https://www.facebook.com/terms.php
Here are a few of the statements from this page that relates to this:
– “You will not create more than one personal profile.”
– “You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain (such as selling your status update to an advertiser)”

To understand the difference read what Facebook says about the difference between a personal and business page:
“What is the difference between a business account and a personal account?”
“Business accounts are designed for individuals who only want to use the site to administer Pages and their ad campaigns. For this reason, business accounts do not have the same functionality as personal accounts. Business accounts have limited access to information on the site. An individual with a business account can view all the Pages and Social Ads that they have created, however they will not be able to view the profiles of users on the site or other content on the site that does not live on the Pages they administer. In addition, business accounts cannot be found in search and cannot send or receive friend requests.”
– From Facebook (see link above)

The benefits of having a Facebook Business page:
– Business Pages allow an unlimited number of that can “like” the page while the personal has a cap at 5,000.
– Pages and posts from Business Pages are indexed by search engines like Google.
– You will be appropriate to your customers and not invading their personal space.
Remember they can be clicking ‘Hide’ and you don’t know it.
– You get more stats and info on which content is being viewed, shared and interacted with to produce better content (e.g. 784 Impressions 1.66% Feedback).
– Your FB business page interacts better with the FB paid ads.
– You don’t run the risk of just being shut down and losing all your contacts.
– You can have several administrators with out giving out your personal password.
– People can check out content on your page before they commit to being liking it.
– You don’t have to spend time approving people that want to ‘Like’ it but you still can remove post or ban people.
– A nice business “Like” button can be added to your business page that show people who are their friends already like you business page and other content.

How can you convert your Facebook personal profile to a Business Page?
Terry Crosby has done such a great job explaining it I am just posting the link to his page for you to read.
http://terrycrosbyblog.com/facebooktutorials/facebook-now-allows-users-to-convert-their-personal-profile-into-a-business-page/

The other way is to create a business page off your real personal page (don’t worry all your content will be protected) by:
1) Sign-in under your personal page.
2) Go to: http://Facebook.com/Pages
3) Pick the best fit and set up your business page.
4) Sign back into the personal page that you used as a business page. Tell your “Friends” a number of times that you are moving over with a link to the new page. If they don’t follow then I will bet they are already ignoring the personal page that you used as a business page and don’t worry about it.
5) Have great content worth their attention.

Let me here from you? What have you learned?
– Martin Brossman NCSmallBusinessTraining.com
Here is my FB business profile if you liked this than please ‘like’ my page:
http://Facebook.com/MartinWBrossman

 

 

Advanced Facebook for Business and new items as of 4-17-2011

April 17th, 2011 | Posted by martinbrossman in Facebook - (0 Comments)

Advanced Facebook for Business - Martin BrossmanA few new advanced features and tips re Facebook for Business as of 4-17-2011. Compiled by Martin Brossman

  • > In the status line there is a new status feature to ask questions on your business page. People can put in their answers or add their vote to an existing answer. Here is a link to a Facebook blog explaining it more: The Wisdom of Friends (and Others Too). “Questions will also enable you to cast a wider net. Now, when your friends answer one of your questions, their friends can answer it too.” – Facebook.
  • > Insights used with the analytic on your own website gives you feedback on what people are giving their attention to. Schedule time to look at both, notice the topics that draw interaction; pay attention to what content gets the most responses and the words people are drawn to.  Look at the “Interactions” areas to learn what people are most looking at and responding to. Use this with the keywords people use to find you.”External Referrers” show how people are getting to your page from outside sites. If you find a site other than yours is referring a lot of people, make sure to thank and/or help them. Here is an explanation of Insights from Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=1103 Another good resource for understanding Insights: http://www.cloudave.com/11566/more-data-on-facebook-insights/ and http://www.barbariangroup.com/posts/7788-from_data_to_decisions_understanding_facebook_analytics
  • > “Using Facebook as YOUR BUSINESS” feature is a great new tool. You can now speak on other business sites as your business. This is a wonderful way to acknowledge other quality businesses  and make sure your comment is a welcome post, not a hidden advertisement, since that will just make your own business look bad. You can find this on the right side when viewing your own business page.
  • > Getting and selecting a “Username” for your business page. After you have over 25 people that ‘like’ your page you can get your own user name. Make sure to keep it as close to your business name as possible and simple. Then instead of a longer URL address with part of your business name and numbers you will get a simple address like my FB business address: http://Facebook.com/MartinWBrossman (I use my name since that is my business name as well).  Here is a link to FB help that talks about this: http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=900
  • >Posting content from your phone to your business page. You can find out how to do this by going to your business page and selecting the “Edit Page” on the upper right side; then select “Mobile” and the email under “With Mobile Email” is the one you want to use from your phone to post content to your business page.
  • >Using Facebook Places for your business if you have a physical location so people can check in. You may also use a in-store QR code to make it easier with a smart phone. “For companies that have a physical location it makes sense to have a Facebook Place in order to track the people who are stopping by your store, office, or venue. As such, Facebook has released a new guide for businesses to learn how to merge Facebook Pages and Facebook Places into a single Page.” From this blog post: http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-places-business-2010-08
  • >Add a ‘Like Box’ to your website so people can see the friends of theirs that ‘like’ your page and it invites them to ‘like’ your business page. Here is the link to get the code to add to your page and make sure you take out the example and add your own FB page: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box/
  • Your Business profile picture can be up to 180 X 540 pixels and Facebook will use at 90px by 90px area of the picture as the square photo used when you post. It does not just grab the upper square part so I recommend reading this post for more details:
    http://www.makeitinmusic.com/facebook-photo-strip
  • Places to post your Facebook page for people to find it: Your website before the break; on your insideareacode.com page like inside252.com or inside919.com ; your linkedin profile; make sure to add the address in your shop or on printed content when you say join us on Facebook; and using a QR code to name a few. More important is making sure their is useful content on your page when people come to visit it.

These are a few “Advanced Facebook” topics and tips for businesses using Facebook for business. There are many more and if you have one you like please share it below.
– Martin Brossman http://NCSmallBusinessTraining.com

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Find Your Niche: Using SEO and Keywords to Build Your Business

March 19th, 2011 | Posted by martinbrossman in Courses - BD | Courses - MMO | Marketing Training | WordPress Training - (0 Comments)

Find Your Niche: Using SEO and Keywords to Build Your Online Business

Standing out from the competition online is tough. Getting people to buy from you is even harder, especially since the internet is extremely price-competitive. This class teaches you how to discover and focus on your niche market, where you can create a sustainable competitive advantage.  When you focus your time and energy on mastering the right combination of skills, you can make yourself stand out from the crowd and charge higher prices than your competitors do.

In this course, you will learn:

  • How to use keyword discovery tools to find untapped niches on the internet
  • How to read web site analytics and interpret the data to guide your business decisions
  • How to set up an opt-in e-mail list that ensures people remember you after they leave your web site
  • How to improve the copy on your web site by incorporating SEO keywords for increased traffic and responses
  • How to convert web site visitors into phone calls and sales!

If you’re ready to stop paying money to host a dead web site that sits on the internet and does nothing, this class is for you. We’ll teach you how to stop wasting time and start making real money.

Twitter: Micro-Blogging and the Power of Soundbites

March 19th, 2011 | Posted by martinbrossman in Courses - OT | Courses - SM | Twitter Training - (0 Comments)

Mark Twain once said “Brevity is the soul of wit.” 140-character messages, used effectively, can go far and make a big impact. Twitter has been extensively used in political campaigns, and has been banned in some countries because of its power to spread viral messages. Twitter also allows you to find out about the news, even before the “news media” knows about it!

In this class, you will learn:

  • How to set up and customize your Twitter account
  • How to determine what type of message is appropriate to post on Twitter vs. other platforms
  • How to use “hashtags” to follow real-time developments on topics of interest to your industry
  • How to use Twitter to monitor what people are publicly saying about your organization