My blog last week, 5 ½ Reasons You Must Have a Facebook Biz Page brought up some great questions and around two topics that I thought I would discuss, because surely other folks have those same questions. Lots of great content here so be sure you scan, skim or whatever you do, but make it to the end. 😉
Recap on the blog
While it would be wise to read the blog in its entirety (hint), other than my stuff is just that fun and informative to read, it is important for your business. But, just in case you need a recap, here you go:
Why you need a Business FB page:
- You have a business and you need to put your business out there as such. If you have a hobby, then by all means chat it up occasionally on your personal profile.
- Plain and simple, those are the rules, FB requires that your business be run on a biz page
- Are you willing to risk having FB shut down your tons of friends due to running your biz on your personal profile?
- Having a biz page gives you more advertising options like boosts and ads on FB, etc.
- You really don’t want to piss off your friends
Don’t piss off your friends
That last one was the one that brought up a few great points. Many indicated, I do the right things but I get more engagement or interaction on my personal profile. And by doing the right thing, this includes sharing from the business page to the personal profile to help that reach and engagement.
FYI – you are GOING to get more engagement on your personal profile – they are your FRIENDS! Click To TweetLet’s recap on Facebook filters
Reminder that Facebook was set up for college students and not for businesses to use. However, businesses found a way to tap into that because after all, businesses WANT to be where their consumers are – THEY ARE THERE! So, Facebook, which is offered to people and businesses now, all for free, wants to make money also so they filter. They filter personal profiles or you’d be looking at a Twitter feed on steroids and they filter the business pages to show posts to those who actually engage with the business.
So, bottom line, create valuable content and work to engage with your followers and they will begin to see your posts. Plus, boost your posts and create ads to engage with your following and reach new folks. This is – pay to play.. Facebook’s way to keep consumers happy by not bombarding them with irrelevant content and giving businesses a way to reach more or reach those who follow but don’t engage.
Engagement on personal profiles versus business pages
It is obvious that you will have more interaction with those whom you interact with, regularly mind you, on your personal page. Keep in mind, that you may have a ton of friends, but only tend to see ‘what’s going on’ with those whom you interact with regularly, right? So, it’s the same type of filter but just a bit stricter for Facebook business pages than personal profiles.
Further, they are your friends and/or family and while they may support you with your business, they might not be your target market.. and if they are, I’d be curious as to why they aren’t following your business page and engaging over there? Don’t worry, I wonder this too!
However, one thing I have to say… please post to your business page and share it to your personal page. This way, if you do get more engagement, the juice will go back to the business page not your personal – you don’t need it there. This is better than posting to your personal profile just because it gets more interaction.
They are your family and friends – but think about this…
They are your friends and family and you likely don’t have to work hard to get their attention, like you do on business page. You can just comment on one of their posts and it starts the engagement cycle, if you will. However, with business pages you can’t tag people, but you CAN tag businesses and you can seek out businesses to engage with.
Did you catch that?
Commit to engaging with other businesses. Scratch my back I’ll scratch yours=engagement, period. Click To TweetFeel free to take time every day or a few times a week to engage AS the business, not just as you, your personal profile, but as the business and then, you might see a little more engagement over on your business side of things. Plus, you are being seen communicating with other businesses and just might be seen by folks you ordinarily wouldn’t have encountered. Hmm?
You can check out the pages you like and engage with them because the more you engage with others, they will engage with you. Just like you engage with your friends about their lives, they come back and engage with yours (like it or not lol). Same with business – amazing concept right? This goes back to… it’s not about us (our business), but the consumers and others.
We have to pay to play and to get engagement we have to give it! BOOM! Click To TweetIt’s part of business
- You will ALWAYS get more engagement on your personal profile than your business
- You WILL have to pay to play to be a business on Facebook – simple
- You will have to work harder to get your followers to engage over your friends/family
- You have to provide value to your followers in order to get them to engage
- You can, and should, share from your biz page to your personal. I said share not post
- You should take the extra time each day/week to engage with other businesses AS your biz
Well.. what an action packed blog, hope you caught all that I was laying down and if you need any help with how to do any or all of this social media stuff, be sure to contact me.
Don’t forget to sign up for my email list as you’ll be up to date on any video series learning opportunities you can participate in (hint hint), great tips and tricks about social media, search engine optimization and so much more business savvy shit.
~Kristen
Great points, Kristen, thank you. I’ve been told I should be engaging more on Facebook with other business AS MY BUSINESS but have ignored it pretty much. Thanks for the push – I will now start doing that on a regular basis!
Thanks Mindy! You are welcome.. happy to push and don’t worry, you aren’t alone and FB has made it a little more difficult by changing how businesses engage too! ugh
Ah! What great tips, Kristen!
And this one really hit me: “post to your business page and share it to your personal page. This way, if you do get more engagement, the juice will go back to the business page not your personal”
What a fabulous tip! Will do! Thank you
Why thank you Susan. Glad it spoke to you.. and don’t want you to lose the juice for your biz page.. so glad to help. 🙂
This is so right on & I’m so glad you wrote this. It clarified everything I’ve learned about the twp & I’m doing all the right things. I can see the folks who are not. Thanks for being so great.
Awww, thanks so much Roz.. glad to help and reinforce the correct ways you have learned. 🙂
Great tips, Kristen. Thanks for sharing. Recently, I created a post sharing a fellow blogger’s post and included the Facebook pages of the writer and the influencer’s quote and boy did I get so much exposure for my Facebook page. 1ens fo thousands viewed the post and what I took away from this was Facebook loves when you link up with influencers. I got 10 new followers in one day because if this one post. Wow.
That is a GREAT example Sabrina and a super opportunity for you as well.. kudos!
Recently I was told to post to my business page and then share the post to my personal page. When I tried, it didn’t allow me to so I am not sure if there is a “new” setting that I need to be aware of. In the past I have been able to post from my writer page to my personal profile, so hopefully it was a temporary glitch. I don’t pay to play and sounds like without the willingness to invest, my page posts might get limited engagement. Yes, my personal page seems to get more traction as you mentioned. Thanks for the clarification and the tips. Time to rethink how I post and which posts to share from my page to my profile. Thanks Kristen!
I am not sure why that would happen as I have NEVER had that problem Beverley.. guessing maybe a glitch or something. You don’t HAVE to pay to play but you will get much better reach if you do… boost a post for as little as a dollar a day for as little as one day. Try it for $1! Otherwise, yes, you will always be limited.
Beverley, it is either a glitch or a new setting. It hasn’t happened to me “yet” but I have noticed that I cannot switch from personal profile to the business page. Though what you said, I agree! Facebook keeps “cutting off” views from the business pages so as the business owners pay for ads to get to their audience.
Zaria
There is a different process now Zaria to comment as the business or like pages as the business than what it used to be.. more of a pain.
Pay to play seems to be getting more and more difficult. I boosted a post this morning and had FB predict an all time low of 240 -750 people might see it. WOW!! For this particular audience, those numbers are a couple THOUSAND short. I do like having a business page and mostly keep business to business and personal posts personal. Great tips – thank you!
Yes Brenda and it might be that pay to play is becoming more evident, even if we don’t want to. The predictions might also be on the dollar amount too.. because it has some ‘algorithms’ based on your audience and when they are on and how they are going to show your ad. But yea.. try it tho and see how much more reach you get v organic. Sad, but true. You are welcome!
BOOM! Just like in the face to face world, you need to engage and provide value to see results. Simple, but not easy. The good stuff doesn’t come easy. This is great advice for anyone looking to do social media.
Yes ma’am.. you know it Christy! Nothing good comes easy, that is for sure!
Always such good info, Kristen. Share the luv days really do help with engagement numbers. I haven’t been sharing from my biz page to personal page, but I will now!
YES.. STL has been helpful for sure Carol.. glad you see the value and hope you start sharing to your personal occasionally!
My favorite point is post to your business page and share it to your personal page. I hope people realize that it is the best way to do it. Fortunately you’ve told us! As usual, you give great advice and I love sharing your articles
Yes, thanks Beth.. there is value in sharing to your personal page.. maybe to reach those that follow your biz but didn’t see it too! Thanks for the compliments! 😉
Thank you Kristen. I am continually learning about Facebook and the best practices. Thank you for always sharing your valuable knowledge, tips and expertise!!
Glad to help Teresa and that you are learning. 🙂
So true, I do not do that very much, that is, engage as my business page on FB…good reminder that I need to start doing that. And to try providing more value.
You aren’t alone Katarina and thanks!
Hi Kristen,
Fantastic post! Yes, as business owners online, you definately want to have a FB Fan Page as it will help you with your fans and you will get tons of engagement as long as you share value daily and consistently 🙂
Loved how you laid it all out so people will have a much better understanding of the importance of having a FB fan page for their business 🙂
Great share!!
Yes Joan, we definitely HAVE to have a FB biz page for our business… not sure about tons of engagement… but we have to do the work to get it. Glad you found the value in how I explained it. 😉
Kristen, thanks for the tips. I had been posting to my personal page and then to my business page, but thought it wasn’t a good idea. So, I was just posting to my business page. Is it a good idea to post to the business page and then the personal page in the same day? Or, does Facebook have some rule about duplicate content? Also, if you are not going to pay to play are there any rules about re-posting to FB on different days to reach a larger audience?
Thanks Joyce and you can do it right away if you like.. shouldn’t really matter.. but whenever you think about it. 😉 There isn’t a rule about duplicate content.. that is more along the search engines with your website… and it wouldn’t be duplicate because you are sharing it.. not copying like it was your own, when it wasn’t. (Ie, you copying my blog and saying it is yours) You can share or post over and over if you want. I write a blog a week but share a blog a day. Do the math.. I am sharing my blogs over and over, as long as they are evergreen, you are good to go!
Thanks Kristen – And yes, we certainly do have to pay to play for a business page on Facebook! However, I do think it’s money well spent. Even for the crowd of people over 60 years old – they’re the fastest growing segment of social media users (I’m assuming because they’re the last of the holdouts). Anyway, I imagine that Facebook is THE social media platform that they’ll learn first – and use the most.
I agree Joan, it is money well spent until we can get them to engage w/o paying. Even for 60+.. and they are climbing, becoming more aware.. totally agree…. love it, the hold outs! lol Easiest one for them to use with the most folks.
Good point about interacting with other businesses as your business. I don’t do enough of that. Appreciate the tip!
Thanks Jackie, I don’t either.. but I try.
Much to Suzanne’s (my coach) chagrin, I do very little on Facebook because I do not like it. I spend a maximum of 30 minutes per day across all of the platforms Mon thru Thu. Not where my clients come from but when things slow down I will explore. Have courses by both Amy Porterfield and Kim Garst that I have yet to crack open 😉
I hear you Rachel.. it isn’t as fun due to all of the filters.. but your customers and competitors are there. It is likely that your clients don’t come from there because you aren’t there. 😉 Hope you get over there eventually! Thanks!
The tricky part is that if you have a personal profile used as Facebook business and you are willing to add more people apart from your close friends and relatives, there is a high chance that people will report you for spam after trying to add them. You definitely don’t want to end up with a blocked account for days. As for all the rest you mentioned Kristen, I totally agree!
Zaria
Yes Zaria.. or your competitors who are intimidated of you. Thanks!
I can’t believe how many people are using their personal FB account for business! So, I’m curious, does this happen to you (wait for it): someone sends me a friend request, I don’t really know them but they are “friends” with a lot of my existing friends, so I accept the request, and then BAM, they are all about business on their personal account. And that’s really why they wanted to be friends. VERY ANNOYING. Anyway, I’ll step off the soapbox for now and let you know that I loved this blog post. It was packed with loads of helpful, useful information and very pleasing to the eye with your layout. Although I missed an infographic…LOL!
Ummm, yes… sadly sooooo many people, they just don’t get it Meggie and I guess they don’t care of getting shut down. And yes, I know about the friends and BAM sell.. LI can be like that sometimes too. Annoying. Thanks Meggie and sorry about the infographic.. can’t do it every week.. gotta keep you on your toes. 😉