If you follow Facebook’s rules, you are strictly prohibited from using your personal profile for business purposes. You must create a business page from your profile and these two entities will be perfectly distinct, their publications and their audiences will have nothing in common.
However, what are the differences and advantages and disadvantages of using one or the other, and why not create another profile that you would only use for professional purposes?
The basics
Personal profile
The personal profile represents an individual and is used to communicate and share personal content: photos, videos, articles, etc.
If you choose to appear in “public”, everyone can have access to your profile, without distinction. All you need is a Facebook account. You activate the “subscribe” function so that people do not have to ask you to be a friend but automatically follow your feed. This is the choice of many personalities.
If you appear in “private”, in order to have access to the data of this account, a person must ask you as a friend and you must accept. This new friend will have access to your profile and your publications. You will see, in return, their profile and the information they agree to share. It is possible to set filters so that content is not accessible to everyone. ?
On your personal profile, you have friends.
The business page
From your personal profile, you can create a business page that is dedicated to your company’s communication. This page is public and everyone has access to its feed.
In order to be able to follow the news on your page, an Internet user must “Like” your page and thus become a “Fan”. You – as a company – do not have to approve, the user will see your publications directly in his personal feed. He can however decide to hide your publications, which happens to those who publish indiscriminately and pollute the feeds, thus causing the rejection of their fans. ?
On your business page, you have fans.
Differences between personal profile and business page
This is your private data and it is up to you to decide whether your information is public – then anyone can subscribe – or private, in which case people who want to become your friends have to make a request which you have to accept before they can access your page. You then have options to determine who has access to what.
This is your identity, so your first name and proper name. You can use a nickname. You can comment and share as long as you are friends.
| Comparative table | ||
| Personal profile | Business page | |
Name |
It represents a company, organisation or association and must bear its name. To create it, you must be the person in charge of that organisation. | |
Goal |
You share photos, videos and articles, and you write posts. This page is strictly for personal use and should not be used for professional promotion or commercial purposes. | It is a way to create a community of fans around your business that can interact with you. It is used to promote your business, develop your professional network and prospect for customers. |
| Access | It is accessible to everyone, even people who do not have a Facebook account. All posts are by definition public and you have no option to restrict them. However, you do have the option to block unwanted posts. |
|
Relationships |
You have ‘friends’. Friend requests can be accepted, ignored or rejected but no one can become your friend without your knowledge. | You have “fans”. These are people who have clicked on “Like” on your page. |
Interactions |
You cannot comment or share on someone’s account. | |
The limits of relationships |
You can have up to 5000 friends. | No fan limit. |
The applications |
You can link applications like Twitter or Instagram but you cannot create applications. | You have the possibility to add and create applications. |
Ads |
Prohibited. | Authorised. |
Giveaway |
Prohibited. | Authorised. |
The profile and the page are completely separate and what you do on one does not appear in the other.
What are the advantages of the business page?
The business page does not usurp its name because it is adapted to professional use. First of all, it is not restricted in the number of fans, to give you infinite possibilities to develop.
You have access to statistics that will help you progress. You need to learn to decipher all the indicators relating to your publications in order to measure their effectiveness. These figures give you an accurate picture of your audience and its behaviour. It is up to you to refine your strategy after analysing your statistics.
You are referenced in Google – an undeniable advantage for a company -, which extends your visibility beyond Facebook and even to people who do not have a Facebook account. The only restriction for them is that they cannot, of course, become fans.
Better management of your Facebook posts
The management of the page can be given to several collaborators simultaneously. For a professional, this is the way to be active twenty-four hours a day and three hundred and sixty-five days a year by taking turns. Your company ensures a constant presence. Different administrators have the same rights to publish and initiate advertisements.
You have the means to manage the publications with great flexibility. This allows you to schedule your publications according to your target and your schedule; whereas scheduling a publication is recently no longer available on a personal Facebook profile! ?
You can create Facebook ads and you have access to a space where Facebook allows you to use its very powerful algorithms to target your potential audience as precisely as possible.
Your business page is about expanding your audience but that doesn’t make your fans friends, remember. ?
Why not create a second personal profile and dedicate it to your business?
First of all, a profile is associated with a physical person according to the Facebook rules.
If you use your personal account for professional purposes, the penalty can be severe if you are spotted: your account can be blocked, transformed into a professional page, resulting in the loss of your publications or, more simply, closed. In this case, you lose all your personal and professional data linked to this account.
People who are interested in this company profile will not be able to join spontaneously because they will have to go through a friend request. They will still be able to subscribe, but there is a strong risk that many will be reluctant to do so, fearing to give you access to their personal data.
Finally, you cannot have more than 5000 friends, which is already a lot, but you have probably not set any limits to your success!
The tricks of the trade to promote your brand with your personal profile
Nevertheless, a personal profile can have advantages for growth hacking, and some do not hesitate to exploit them. Some Facebook marketers have even made it their specialty.
They create a “clone” on Facebook for this purpose, whose professional side is clearly identifiable. Let’s say your brand sells cat food, that passion for cats should shine through! The personal profile can thus become the place for a storytelling that is particularly advantageous for the brand. Your affiliation with the company should also be clearly displayed.
There are tools for adding friends en masse, based on their interests. If well targeted – cat lovers whose profile matches your persona – you can expect an acceptance rate of over 20%.
Then you can talk to these “friends” via Messenger. You can share your info, invite them to the Facebook group created by your brand to advise feline owners… ?
You can imagine the interest of such techniques, even if they are sometimes “borderline” with the Facebook rules.
Conclusion: should you use your personal profile to promote your brand on Facebook?
In order to avoid the language, I would say that, nowadays, the professional and personal sides often mix on Facebook… After all, if you have a business that you are proud of, it seems normal to tell your friends about it, right?
With the loss of visibility of Fan Pages on Facebook, it even seems “fair game” to try to compensate with guerrilla techniques.
Don’t annoy your prospects too much. Act with finesse and kindness. Using a personal profile can be a winning strategy. Above all, be careful not to fall into the dark side. This could cost you dearly in Zucky’s network.
In any case, you should also create a business page (you can do this from your personal Facebook profile). This gives you access to some very interesting promotional tools and allows you to preserve your privacy.
In business, you can never be too well equipped. If you do it smart, you can use both types of profiles very well. This is especially true in the start-up and expansion phase of your business. ?
