If you’re at all familiar with Facebook, you’re quite familiar with the Facebook profile.
But are you familiar with the Facebook Page?
Facebook pages were created to allow businesses, companies, and groups to have a presence on Facebook. Because only businesses can have a Facebeook page, people don’t become “friends” of your Facebook page, they become “fans”. Just like profile pages, you can post photos, videos, notes, updates. You can also create events for your Facebook page.
So, you might be thinking, if I already have a Facebook profile, why would I want a Facebook page too? Well, if you’re using your Facebook account to promote your artwork as well as keep up with your friends, a page has several advantages over profiles.
- There are no messaging limits- If you’ve ever wanted to send a message to a large group of people in your Facebook Profile, you’ve found that you can’t after you’ve selected a certain amount of people. With a Facebook Page, you can message as many fans as you want at a time. (Please do note that Page messages don’t show up directly in your fans’ Facebook Inbox…they show up in the “Updates” tab under the Inbox section)
- Pages look “cleaner” than Profiles- Some artists have complained that Facebook Pages look a bit “cluttered”. In comparision, Facebook Pages are much cleaner.
- You can assign different administrators for your Facebook Page- If you’re going to have someone help you update your Facebook Page, you can assign them their own login.
- You can have more than one Facebook Page- If you sell more than one type of artwork or you have a separate business, you can create a page for that too!
- You can create Facebook ads for your page- I’m not sure how effective Facebook ads are, but you do have the ability to advertise your page on the Facebook network. If anyone has had experience with this I’d love to hear about it.
- Facebook Pages have stats- If you’re into keeping track of traffic and statistics, you’re able to do that with your Facebook Page. You can keep track of how many people visit your page, how many fans you have, and the demographic information for your fans.
So how do you create your own Facebook Page? For some reason this feature is somewhat difficult to find, but you start creating your page by going to this link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php. If you have your own Facebook profile, you’ll need to be logged in before you visit this link. Otherwise, you’ll have to create a new log in to create the page.
Once you reach the page creation section, you’ll have to choose whether your page is to be listed under “local”, “brand or product”, or “artist, band, or public figure”, etc. This will help classify you under the Facebook Pages search. After that, customizing your Facebook Page is similar to creating your Facebook Profile.
Need some examples to follow? Here are some Facebook Pages I’m fans of
- Nicolette Tallmadge Designs- my page…you know I had to
- CRAFT Magazine
- Business of Crafts
- Paper Scissors Rock
- Buyers Market of Craft
- Etsy Profiles
- Greenjeans
- Luann Udell
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
excellent post!
melissa
I really appreciate how you defined the differnces between a profile and a fan page. what is the difference between a fan page and a group on facebook? i recently opened a fan page for my business and i was wondering if i should also open a group.
Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou for writing this post – It’s just what I needed!
Great post. I have a related question: How can I get my Fan page to show up (as a tab, link, etc) on my personal profile page?
I will give this method a try. It sure sounds good to me.
I will surely get back with my results. Meanwhile, I just created an e-catalog of my works and it can be viewed on http://madhouze.ning.com Let me know ways of making it better.
Holla!
Excellent post. There is a blog post at http://www.unilyzer.com that gives detailed instructions on how to track fanpage statistics using Google Analytics. And, to make things even better, if you give the Unilyzer authorization to pull your google analytics data, it will create a real nice dashboard for you to track your fanpage stats, plus the unilyzer will collect twitter, youtube, and website traffic as well. You can track up to 5 different websites, blogs or fanpages. Check out their blog at http://www.unilyzer.com.
I’m not sure how effective Facebook ads are, but you do have the ability to advertise your page on the Facebook network. If anyone has had experience with this I’d love to hear about it..