(UPDATED July 2017)
So many businesses are now jumping on the Facebook bandwagon in droves and there are still a lot of misunderstandings when it comes to setting up the account correctly. Do you need a personal profile first? Can I just create a personal profile with my business name and information instead of my own personal information? What about using the “BUSINESS ACCOUNT” feature that is available when setting up a Facebook PAGE for the first time to avoid having to create my own profile?
Not fully understanding the differences can end up hurting the efforts you put into managing your Facebook presence as well as the actual functionality of your business page. To understand the 3 faces of Facebook (Profiles-Pages- Groups) check out my earlier post but let’s look at some important facts that will help you make these decisions as set up a business page:
-
- You can create a Facebook PAGE for any of your businesses. You must be an official representative of the business or organization to create a PAGE (not just someone who uses a service or likes a business). Even as a hired consultant, you are authorized to set up the business PAGE and I highly suggest you add one or two additional people to be admins on the PAGE after it is created (These people must have a personal profile set up and become FANS of the PAGE first!).
-
- To create a business PAGE (or Fan PAGE as we used to call them), you must also set up a personal PROFILE or “BUSINESS ACCOUNT” that is linked to the PAGE. Some people make the mistake of thinking they will keep their personal PROFILE for personal use and set up an additional “BUSINESS PROFILE” using a different email address for their business. DON’T DO IT! Managing multiple PERSONAL PROFILE accounts is a serious violation of Facebook’s terms of use and they can terminate all of your accounts. You will be adding a feature to your Facebook PROFILE when you create a PAGE. You will use the same login information but they are kept very separate. Many fear that by connecting the two, FANS of the business will see the personal information on the PROFILE. This is not true. A personal PROFILE can have multiple business PAGES attached and they are each kept as stand alone. You are just given the ease of logging into one account and jumping to any PAGE you manage.
- If you do not have a personal PROFILE on Facebook and you don’t intend to ever use a personal PROFILE on Facebook, you CAN go the route of a “BUSINESS ACCOUNT.” This is basically just a “limited” personal profile. Facebook still wants to know that there is a real person managing the account and they want to know how to get a hold of you. HOWEVER… here are a few more things to keep in mind before you decide to forego the personal PROFILE for the BUSINESS ACCOUNT:
-
- You only have access to information that is LIVING ON THE PAGE (Posts on your PAGE wall, etc.). If a fan comments, you cannot click over to see the PROFILE. (Creating a personal PROFILE, even without using it, will open this feature)
- A business account CANNOT be found in a search (a PAGE can be found and a PERSONAL PROFILE can be found but not your name or information listed in the biz account set up)
- You CANNOT send or receive friend requests when you are set up under a BUSINESS ACCOUNT. All activity is strictly run through your PAGE. (With personal PROFILES you can send and receive messages from people on Facebook)
Most people find that it is easier and more flexible to just create a personal PROFILE and limit the info shared there. You may change your mind later and post information or start connecting with friends and professional associates.
Remember, any post or comment made from your business PAGE does not reference or show information from your personal PROFILE. It does NOT have your name attached at all and vice versa. When you post something on your personal PROFILE, your fans on your PAGE will not receive that post.
If you are completely confused by now, give me a holler! Although many think it is not a big deal, later they regret that they set their business PAGE up incorrectly or their account gets shut down because they have two different PROFILES associated with their name. Take some time to do it right and this marketing powerhouse tool will help you connect and engage your community!
We have loads of free resources on our site for helping you to engage and continue growing your Facebook community. Happy connecting!
@GinaSchreck and her team manage the social media marketing for organizations, both large and small. From goal setting and strategy development, to daily research, posting and customer service, we help YOU connect to YOUR WORLD!
Gina – I am a bit confused – I’ve set up a business page and now would like a personal profile and customized URL but I’m fearful to try b/c with a fan base of 151 I don’t want to get shut down. Can you help. Not sure how to contact you…
Hi Kara
When you created your business page you would have had to give basic information to Facebook such as name, email etc. So you technically HAVE a personal account but it is classified as a business account because of how you went about the set up. It is easy to convert though. From your page, look for the “Create Your Profile” button, you will be asked to provide additional information to allow you to transform your business account into a personal account.
You will be required to enter your full name, and answer a few questions. Once this final registration step is completed, you will then permanently have a personal account on the site.
If you convert your business account into a personal account, you will still be able to manage your Page and the fans of your Page will not have visibility or access to your personal profile.
I hope that is helpful :)) If you have additional questions you can contact me at Gina@socialknx.com
Thanks for providing this helpful advice. However, a lot remains unclear to me after reading this.
I am an attorney with a solo practice. I’d like to create a Facebook fan site for my law firm. It needs to be included in internet and Facebook search results or it is wasted effort. But it is imperative that nothing related to my personal Facebook account be viewable on the fan site–personal profile photo, list of friends, etc.
This includes the email address I used to set up my personal profile, which is a different address from my firm’s email address. If I cannot de-link the two addresses in a way that prevents persons who are fans of the business page but not personal profile friends from viewing the personal email address, then I probably have no option but not to make an account.
Hi Bill~ This is a common concern of folks when they are setting up a biz page (fan page) and the confusion usually leads to double accounts and lots more confusion. Your personal information is NOT visible to any of the FANS. They do not even know that YOU are the admin on that page. The only contact info that they can see is the info you put into the front page description. See my Gettin’ Geeky page for an example. http://Facebook.com/GettinGeeky You will not see my personal profile picture, my email address or any other information that is not work related.
By the same token, your friends on the personal profile are not made FANS and the only way you can get them to join your new page is to personally invite them.
When you log in with your personal email, that is ONLY for your log in purposes- you can list your work email on the PAGE along with links to your website etc.
I hope that helps :)) Let me know if you have other questions
Much SUCCESS!
Hi Gina..
I totally get what youre saying but lets say I have a team of 6 and all of us are running the business, isnt everyone going to know my personal information because they have to enter my page first?
Hi Joe
I think I answered this via email, but thought I should post the answer here for all to see as well. The answer is NO- each person logs into their own Facebook account via their personal profiles and then they go from there to the page they administer. I co-administer several pages and yet I am not even connected on “personal side” to some of the others. It is a great feature. :))
Thanks for the comments!
Gina
Thanks for this article! I have a lot of clients and potential clients who are very confused about why they need to set up a biz page instead of creating a profile. Their biggest concern is as you addressed, that their personal info will somehow get out there. I’ll be linking back to this one! 🙂
Cheers
Thanks Alyssa~
This is the biggest mistake we see businesses make. As we audit new client accounts, we see personal profiles set up for them. They don’t realize that they will do a lot of work and end up having to eventually move everyone (not an easy job at all) to a biz page when they max out on “friends”, and they miss out on the great analytics available to business pages.
Cheers to you!
I am a bit confused as well. I only want to create a facebook page for my business and not have it tied with any personal account. I do not have a facebbok profile, nor want to create one. I click on “Create a Page for a celebrity, band or business.” and then fill in the appropriate information on the next page under the “Official Page” section. I then proceed to the next step where it asks me to create an account, so I enter the information there, and make sure to select that I do not have a facebook account. Once finished, and I clicked on the “Sign Up Now!” button, it asks me to validate my email. I go to my email and validate the link which takes me to a page that states, “To use this feature, you will need to sign up for a personal Facebook profile.” That’s obviously what I do not want to do. But it looks like it’s making me? I signed up for it thinking it was just part of the signup, but then it creates a whole personal profile page for me 🙁 Is there a way around this so that I only have a facebook page, and not a personal profile?
Thanks!
Hi Lance–It is confusing but Facebook does require you to have a personal profile (just so they know that there is a person associated with the biz pages). This personal profile info is NEVER seen or known to anyone connected with the business page. I set up biz pages often for companies and then once I am finished and want to turn over the admin duties, it has to go to someone who has a personal profile set up – this is how Facebook sends info, but fans never know the difference.
Step 1: Set up Personal Profile
Step 2: Create Biz Page (do not choose COMMUNITY PAGE)
Step 3: Fill biz page with some info, photos, posts etc
Step 4: Invite customers, friends, via email, Twitter, regular marketing materials, signature line in email and more. Since you do not have anyone you are connected with on your personal profile, you will not be able to INVITE FRIENDS from Facebook (one option when you have connections there already)
You will see the SET UP TAB on your Facebook Biz Page until you get some activity going and then it just disappears. Your fans will be sent to the WALL tab when they come to the page.
I hope this is helpful :)) Best wishes and be sure to share your PAGE here for some new Fans as well!
This is not really that clear. FB wants the Owner/Admin to show a picture or at least their name in the About page. I finally did so understanding if any one clicked my name they would see my PUBLIC view of my personal account. But today months later I’m finding they see my personal page! OR is it because it is ME who is clicking on that link? FB HAS reinstalled the “view as public” on our personal accounts but I don’t know that it works from the Business Page?
Hi Gloria
You don’t need to put your name on your about page. I am an admin on about 80 pages along with a team of people who are admins, editors, advertisers, etc that we have no identifying information on for ourselves personally because the business is someone else’s. You can also write about yourself without linking to your personal profile. I log in with my personal profile and then go to the pages I manage and no one can tell who is the admin on them. I hope that helps.
Thanks for the article. My concern is that I would like to “like” articles relating to my business and have them appear only on my page but not on my personal wall. Is there a way to do this? Thanks.
Hi Trista
It is still a great frustration for many businesses! Facebook currently only allows SHARING from friend to friend (personal profiles only) but to SHARE content you have to copy the URL and go to your PAGE to paste there. The positive thing about going straight to your PAGE to post this content is it opens up the link allowing OTHERS to SHARE the content from there! Strange and frustrating but until the next round of changes we work around! :))
_______________
UPDATE to this: Now you CAN share from something you read on a personal timeline (say from one of your friends) and when you select SHARE it will give you choices to share to one particular friend, share on your timeline or share to a business page–if you manage several biz pages, you can select which one and it will go there!
GREAT NEWS!
Hi Trista,
Is there a way for my personal profile NOT to show up in Facebook search? I only want my Fan page to show up.
I’d also like to rename my Fan page to my name (without the long number after it).
Is any of this possible?
Thanks for any help!
Yes to all of the above. :)) To ensure your personal profile does not show up in a Facebook search you need to adjust your privacy settings under your ACCOUNT–PRIVACY SETTINGS to the tightest level. Look for “Control basic information your friends will use to find you on Facebook. View Settings” This will allow you to get those settings right. To rename your page with a CUSTOM URL, you must first have 25 people who have LIKED your page. Once you have 25, you simply go to http://Facebook.com/username to claim the URL.
Let me know if you need additional help! :))
Hi Trista — Help!
One of our employees set up a business page on Facebook (eQHealth Solutions) in order to manage 3 fan pages for 3 different grants that we manage.
Although all the business information is good, his personal name is what shows up as the name of the account. So his name comes up on top of the logo when something is posted from our main account to anywhere else… (a comment we might make on someone else’s page, etc.)
I tried changing the name on the account to our business name, but that didn’t happen. I use our company name as an alternate name, that didn’t help. I set up privacy settings on the profile to highest settings — that didn’t help.
HELP!
Thanks so much
Lisa Stansbury
Hi Lisa~
Let me see if I am correct in understanding the situation: I went to the eQHealth Solutions PAGE and cannot see who is attached to this page so I am assuming this is the FIRST page you mentioned. IF the other three pages were set up in the same way this one was it should not have the name of the admin at all. Unless he set them as PROFILES instead of PAGES. Is one of the accounts: EQHealth Solutions: Louisiana Medicare Quality Summit & Awards’s Profile? If so the problem is this was set up as a PERSONAL PROFILE and not a PAGE. Profiles are for PEOPLE and pages are for BUSINESSES. If you’d like you can send me the links and I can see how the others are set up–feel free to email me if you’d like to keep them private (Gina at socialknx.com) It is a good ideas for you all to have a couple people on as admins-regardless of who created it. If this guy created the pages all you have to do is LIKE the page and then he can go into ACCOUNT (upper right of screen) and MANAGE PAGES to add others as ADMINS.
I hope this helps–Let me know if I can help. :)) ~Gina
Gina, Thanks for explaining all this. It is the first time someone has explained this issue so well.
I had a question: When I set-up my Business on FB, I go to the business page set-up and while I am in that set-up, I will be prompted to complete a personal profile? If I follow these steps then my Business will appear in search, and my personal profile will not need to appear if I don’t want it to correct?
Sorry if it is redundant, it is just that I have delayed setting up a page before, as it was all very confusing!
Hi Ann
You are correct. Your personal profile has privacy settings that can adjusted so that it cannot be found in a search at all–go to Account and Privacy Settings. A business PAGE has no privacy settings and can be found in FB searches AND also has great rankings in search on Bing and Google. Obviously the more people you get to connect with your page and comment and LIKE your posts the more juice it gives it in searches. That personal profile set up is just to ensure you are a real person managing the biz PAGE and neither are seen by the other by anyone except you. (I hope that is not more confusing :))
~Gina
Dear Gina,
I find your article very interesting and useful. As a newcomer to Facebook I have a problem:
Wanted to create FB page for local business first I gave a user name to my Profile page same as my brand is. So when I made a FB Business page and 25 people LIKED it, I realized that I can’t use a same name of the brand.
What can I do now?
My goal (wish) is to have FB page with name of my brand.
Profile page can be renamed into any other name.
I know that I can rename user name only once (on both pages), so before your suggestion I will not change anything – not to make things more badly.
My idea is to change user name on Profile page into anything else and after rename user name for Business page with the one I used for Profile page before.
I am worried that I could lose my brand name on both pages if Business page refuses to take user name that was before used for my Profile page!
Is there any easiest way, any legal swap of the names since I am the creator of both pages, and I am not interested if I lost my friends or people that LIKE me?
Can my Profile page be transformed into Business page?
Also second question: why it is impossible to set a user name: http://www.facebook.com/baloni, since it is not already taken?
“Baloni” means “balloons” in Croatian language; maybe it is generic, or what?
THNAK YOU FOR HELP IN ADVANCE!
Kind regards,
Miro
This is a tricky situation and why I always warn people not to use a personal name for a business page…unless your name IS your business brand! 🙂 Until you have 100 people LIKE a business page, you can change the name, and you are correct that a personal profile can be changed easily. I would suggest you change the personal profile to include a middle initial or name and then on your BUSINESS PAGE you might want to add another word that indicates it is a business so that when people do a search and find both accounts, there is a way to differentiate. (i.e. Gina Schreck-Author or Miroslav Marusic-Baloni)
Facebook requires both first and last name for a PERSONAL profile but I am not sure why Facebook will not allow you to get BALONI as a BIZ username. It may have to do with the fact that you have your name already attached to it. Try first changing the name and THEN securing the custom URL.
I wish you the best in getting this solved–please let us know. Have a great week~
Gina
hi gina, this may be answered in one of your replys about and yet i’m confused. fyi, i’m a total newbie in FB and pls bear with me, gina.
i already have a personal profile and now i want to create a page. i’m stuck a this step, which one should i click, “I do not have a Facebook account” or “I already have a Facebook account”?
This is actually not such a “newbie” question–:)) Facebook doesn’t make it easy! The best way to begin is to simply go to http://Facebook.com/pages and if it doesn’t automatically log you in it will have you log in with your PERSONAL log in info –that is the correct way to do it. THEN you will be on the business page set up, ready to add photos, posts, and connect with folks. They are still separate even though you log in with your personal info. Our company manages several corporate biz pages and I still have to log into Facebook with my personal info and then when I go to the biz page I become THAT PAGE. I hope that makes sense. :)) Be sure to leave your page link here when you are set up so we can help send some people your way!
Hello, I have a fb personal account and I am now going to set up my business account.
My question is what name should I use to set up my business account.
My business name is SC Enterprises but my website is http://www.WeMakeMagnets.com which is what I do. I guess I am confused what my brand is. I believe it is WeMakeMagnets.com which is more original then SC Enterprises. In the google search when you type in SC Enterprises I come up as SC Enterprises-WeMakeMagnets.com
Do you see any issues naming my business account in way?
SC Enterprises-WeMakeMagnets.com
For branding, marketing and setting up in facebook what is your suggestion?
I appreciate your input.
Thank you,
Hi Sal–GREAT question and I know MANY MANY businesses are struggling with that same thing. I love WE MAKE MAGNETS because it tells me immediately WHAT you do and WHY I would want to join in and LIKE your page. SG Enterprises doesn’t give me any info. If there is no one else using the URL facebook.com/WeMakeMagnets I would snap that right up. SGE can be the company but WMM is your BRAND! Our company is Synapse but my Facebook page is GettinGeeky–much easier for people to “get it!” Once you set up your page, you need to have 25 people “LIKE” it before you can secure that custom URL – so definitely come back and post the link to your page here when it is ready and we will give it a BIG shout out! Best wishes and many LIKES!!
I snapped up the name but I had another question. Should have I made the name wemakemangets.com ? Does fb allow you to use your url?
Thank you
Sal
No need for the .com part–just WeMakeMagnets works great. I don’t think you can use a .com as part of your FB Page name.
Group,
I would much appreciate it if you would start my business page off right with “liking” it. Please go to:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Trista-Haugen-Macauley-ReMax-100/147792378567170
Thanks so much!
Done and congratulations! It looks great! Don’t forget to like your own page. :))
Thank you for all your help.
I just need to build my 25 people
Any chance I can get a “like” click from you?
Here is the message I am sending out:
I need 25 people to click “Like” on my FB Business Page. Could you help me out? Go to this link and click the “Like Button”
http://www.facebook.com/pages/WeMakeMagnets/107606862651056?v=app_4949752878&ref=sgm
I think you could click on picture to get you there
I have LIKED your page–here are a few suggestions before you invite the world. Post a few tips on how people can use magnets to build their business. Remember a FBook page has to be a mix of your marketing along with tips or helpful information that FANS will want to receive. Perhaps load 3 or 4 wall posts with some short tips on marketing such as “Did you know 85% of people will not throw away a business card if it has a magnet on the back? Ask me how we can help you STICK AROUND LONGER”
Also add a photo to as many of your posts as possible–visual appeal will help your posts get read more often.
Great job and here’s to BIG BIZ SUCCESS!
Gina
I created business page without a personal and am now stuck as how to proceed as i cannot comment on fan’s comments and it tells me there are no admins of my page. I am leery of all the warnings on create your profile. How do i best connect a personal profile at this point?
(set it up separately, like my page and make myself admin)or
(do it thru the create your profile) or
(change the settings as the only two that are answered are email and password)
Should i use the same email i used to set up business account?
Thanks
http://www.facebook.com/pages/jackclampcom/171143629598148
Hi June
This answer is long but not really complicated :)) If you created your FB Page under a BUSINESS ACCOUNT you should see a link at the top that says “CREATE YOUR PROFILE” – this IS the process you will want to take. You will have to provide additional information to allow you to change the BIZ ACCOUNT into a PERSONAL ACCOUNT, but this does NOT affect your PAGE at all. No one on your BIZ PAGE can see any of the information that you enter on your profile.
You do NOT want to set up with separate emails as this causes confusion for you as the admin. These two accounts are only linked in ADMIN duties. (You can see how I have done this on my BIZ PAGE: GETTIN’ GEEKY Web Show and my Personal Profile–Gina Schreck-which has only information I am willing to share with the world-I don’t put anything out there that is PRIVATE–feel free to connect with me)
Once the final registration step is completed, you will then permanently have a personal account on the site that has a biz page attached. If you convert your business account into a personal account, you will still be able to manage all the Pages and Facebook Ads you’ve created by clicking the “Ads and Pages” link in the left hand navigation menu entitled “Applications.”
Now any actions that you take as a Page Admin on your Page will show the Page’s name (logo or picture of your business) and not your personal name. Once you leave your business PAGE and go to a fans profile, you are back to YOU as a person and can invite them to connect with you. Your business page cannot go out and connect with fans–they have to come to you. There are many things that you can do to to help them FIND your page though (See recent post on my GETTINGEEKY PAGE CROSS-POLLINATING
Best wishes to you and thanks for your question! ~Gina
Did you know 85% of people will not throw away a business card if it has a magnet on the back? Ask me how we can help you STICK AROUND LONGER”
LOVE IT!!! Great job! :))
I made a business Facebook page for my company, I have my own personal page but I did not link it to the business page because I am not the only Admin and I dont want the other Admins seeing my personal page. My question is, My page is not searchable under the search engines and when I type in our vanity URL it goes to a page that says ” Page Not Found” Also, other people can not find us when searching our business name by using Facebook.com. Can you tell me what the problem is and how do I fix this? Do I need to link it to my personal page or create a profile? I page disappers and then reappears. Please Help.
Hi April~ First pages SHOULD be linked to personal accounts, and adding other admins gives them NO abilities to see or acess any of your personal info–they aren’t even automatically connected as friends. You each use your own login info to go onto Facebook and then if you are listed as an admin you can access the PAGES that you manage. I am listed on many pages that we manage for companies along with their management teams and we are not connected on personal profiles.
Secondly, I am assuming since you said you have the Vanity URL for your PAGE, that you have over 25 fans on the page already and do not want to start over. But when you created the business page, you had to enter some personal information such as email and contact name (This is why it keeps it cleaner to do it from your personal profile -so you don’t have to log out and into other accounts) but when you log in with this secondary account info you set up the page with, you should see a link on the left that says ADS AND PAGES (bottom left section of links and you may have to click MORE to see it) This will get you to your page–round about way)
Let me know the name of the page and I can see if I can find it as well. Once we find it you can go on to that PAGE from your personal PROFILE and LIKE it. THEN you can add yourself and anyone else as admins. :)) I hope that is not too confusing.
It seems like our page disappears then reappears since we were able to get the vanity URL. I am assuming maybe its not working because it is not attached to a personal page, but I have googled alot about this an I guess alot of people are claiming that their business page disappears now that they have the vanity URL. Can we go to create a page and start a personal page that way and when it asks ” Do I have a page already” just hit Yes? Or do I need to start all over. The name is Metropolitan Cabinets & Countertops URL is suppose to be Facebook.com/MetropolitanCabinets but it says page not found. Even when I search on Facebook.com I have trouble viewing the page. Very confused. Please help!