When getting started with Facebook for business it’s important to understand the difference between a Facebook page vs. Personal Profiles.
Some business either from lack of understanding or purposefully create personal profiles for their business. Creating a personal profile for a business is against the Facebook terms of service.
Personal timelines:
[o_list][li]Timelines are for individual, non-commercial use. [/li] [li]Timelines represent individual people and must be held under an individual name. [/li] [li]You can follow Timelines to see public updates of people you’re interested in but aren’t friends with.[/li] [/o_list]
Facebook Pages:
[o_list][li]Pages look similar to personal timelines, but they offer unique tools for connecting people to a topic you care about, like a business, brand, organization or celebrity. [/li] [li]Pages are managed by admins who have personal timelines[/li] [li]Pages are not separate Facebook accounts and do not have separate login information from your timeline.[/li] [li]Pages provide insights to help admins understand how people are interacting with the Page. [/li] [li]You can like a Page to see updates in your news feed about brands you care about.[/li] [/o_list]
What’s the Big Deal?
Opting for Personal Profile vs. a Facebook page may quickly allow you to garner friends, but be warned, Facebook has been known to completely delete profiles that are against the Facebook Term of Service. You’ll lose all of your pictures, posts, and friends in the process. All the hard work is gone. We know this to be true because it happened to a client prior to coming on board with us. 3,000+ friends gone.
Why do people do it?
Building a following isn’t easy. By using a personal profile companies send out mass friend request. It’s an attempt to get around the need to run ads or actually engage to build a page.
I’m Guilty What do I Need to Do?
First things first, you admitted it. Now you can go about making things right. You’ll need to convert your personal page to a Facebook page. Facebook will transfer your current profile picture and add all your friends and followers as people who like your page. You account username will become the username of the page. You’ll have the option to create a new page name if you like.
No other content (images, videos, etc) will be carried over, so make sure you download your Facebook history. From here you’ll be able to rebuild your page (contact us if you need help doing this).
Beware, once you convert your personal account to a Facebook you cannot reverse it. So it’s extremely important that you remember to download your history.
I’m Creating my First Page. Where do I go?
You want to start out right by visiting the Create a Page section on Facebook.
