You may have a lot of questions when starting a Facebook Page for your business, and with the recent addition of the Facebook Professional profile, you may be confused on which one you should start for your business. Let’s put some clarity on Facebook for Small Business, which option you should use as a small business, and how to use each option.
Facebook for Small Business
Every small business should have a Facebook presence. According to a recent count of users, there are 3.049 billion (with a b) users on Facebook alone, making Facebook one of the most used social media app out there. So it would make sense that your small business should have a Facebook page.
Is Facebook for Business Free?
Yes. No matter how many internet “copy and paste” chain mail posts try to convince people otherwise, Facebook is free for its users. It will be free to make a profile for yourself, and for your business.
Now, does that mean that there is no way you can pay for Facebook services, no. You can pay for:
Those services do come with a price, however you don’t run ads, boosts your posts or don’t care (or don’t have access too) verification, you’ll never need to pay Facebook to put your business on its platform.
Does a Facebook Page need to be Attached to a Profile?
Yes. There is no way, currently for a Facebook business page to exist without being made by a Facebook profile account. The directions for creating a Facebook business page are easy, and are found in the Facebook Help Center. They do change often, as Facebook changes it layout, so checking the Facebook help center is a great place to find out the current information.
What’s Facebook Verification?
Facebook verification is the blue checkmark after profiles name to verify that they are who they say they are. This was a process only given to celebrities or people who have gained internet fame, and were unique and notable.
Now, however, Facebook allows anyone in the US, and in select other countries to pay about $15/month to pay for the Facebook verification. The process you have to go through verifies your identity with your government ID that proves you are who you say you are. Your profile/page will then have a blue checkmark at the end of the display name, and you’ll have access to extra support from Meta.
Can I Promote my Business on my Personal Profile?
Yes, but don’t drop a link and run. Your personal profile is where your friends and family are, and they don’t want to overwhelmed with your business posts.
Promoting actual business content on a personal profile (not in professional mode) is against Facebooks Terms of Service. You should NOT make your business a personal profile, or run your current business from your personal profile.
DO:
- Share your events to your personal profile when they’re relevant to your friends
- Invite your friends to like your business page
- Use friends lists, and public posts to post about different types of content. You should be posting publicly so if people come looking at your profile, there’s some information about who you are available to them.
- Use your personal profile to participate in industry-relevant groups, providing value in those groups, and directing them to your business page when needed.
There are plenty of ways to use both your business page and your personal profile together to help expand your reach, get more followers and more sales.
Should I have a Professional Profile for my personal profile?
This will depend on your business. In most cases, no you don’t need to turn your personal profile into a professional profile. If your business is you – as in you’re a content creator – you could turn your personal profile into a professional profile. That does come with the risk of your friends and family getting angry or being miffed that you’re all of the sudden posting public posts, and seem like you’re ALWAYS on their timelines.
But I think its still better to make a business page, or make a second profile that is for your content creation.
Why Should I Make a Business Page?
As I mentioned earlier, it is against Facebook’s terms to use your personal profile for business. So you’d need to make a change from a personal profile page no matter what.
A business page will give you access to the ads manager, the ability to schedule posts for later posting without use of a third-party app, and have the ability to add a CTA (call to action) button on your posts. Scheduling post natively to Facebook is one way to help your time management, as you don’t have to worry about it coming unconnected, and it can help you be consistent in your posting. Running ads can help boost your reach, gain new followers, and if you’re having an event or sell a product (classes, workshops, or merch) running ads on the event or product and that can increase your sales and your attendance.
A professional profile does not have access to those things, and so you’re limited by your public presence. You will have to try harder to get out of your warm market with your professional profile – your friends and family, or the first people to follow you – with a lot of public content. That’s fine, its just harder. Ads and boosting posts will help get out of your warm market easy, because you’re paying for the reach.
If you’re a business, that could be an in person business, then a business page is probably going to be the best option for your business. The ads, and the ability to schedule in Meta Business Suite are going to be invaluable to you. I would go ahead and set up a business page for your business, and post your public content.
If you’re a content creator (either along with having a business, or “just” merch) I think I’d still lean on business page. But its ultimately your choice. The ads and the ability to schedule posts and videos out in advance is a very useful feature, but you could look into third party apps that could help you schedule things on your professional profile. You’d also have to make the choice that your friends and family are going to see your content unless you happen to make a new profile just for you content.
How can a Virtual Assistant help with your Facebook Page?
Bring in a virtual assistant to help with your Facebook page can free up your time within your business. But what can a virtual assistant actually help you with on your business page?
Answer your DMs
Do you find yourself having to answer DMs on your Facebook page? Its a great way for customers and businesses to interact, but that takes time out of your already busy day. You don’t want the DMs to not get answered, but you can’t sit attached to your computer for several hours at a time just answering DMs.
You can hire a virtual assistant that can do that. It will take a bit of prep from you, and a bit of extra communication to your VA – at least at first. If you write down all of your frequently asked questions and answers in a document for your VA to pull from, they can begin to answer the DMs for you. As questions come up that the VA doesn’t know, they will reach out to you and ask you to get the answer, or send them an email address to direct their question too – whichever way you may want to do it. Work out a plan with your VA and they grab the DM reigns and run with them.
Schedule or Post your Content
If you’re lacking the time to sit down and schedule or post your Facebook Page content, that is something that you can hand over to a virtual assistant. Making the content can already be baked into your routine, but the actual act of sitting down and coming up with captions, and schedule the Facebook posts, and reels can be time consuming.
You can put the content into a drive – like Google or Dropbox – and your virtual assistant can take those, write up the captions to go with the posts, and schedule them out for you. They can can also post in real time if needed, for you. A business page can have multiple admins, so the postings will still show up as the page, you as an admin may see the VAs name as a “posted by” but only admins can see that. Your customers won’t notice the difference.
Interact with your Comments
On all of the social media platforms, do not post and ghost. They want their content creators to interact with the other content on their platforms. So you need to be interacting with the comments you receive your posts, and that takes time. You can add it into your daily routine, but once it becomes overwhelming, you no longer want to do, or you can’t keep up.
A VA can help you with that, by interacting with your comments as your page. This frees up your time to go do your other business tasks, and your comments will still get answered or interacted with.
Help you Plan your Content
Depending on the skills of your VA, they can help you plan your Facebook page content. Some VA don’t specialize in content planning, but there are some that do. And those VAs can help you brainstorm, and help get your plan set up, making it easy for you to make your content. Then you give the content to them, and they can take it and run with it.
Hi! I’m Melodie of MelodieFaery, and its my mission to help small business owners achieve more of a work-life balance by taking the time consuming tasks off their ever growing to-do lists.
Do you find your to-do list is longer than your workday, and you want to do more in your business, but cannot find the time to do what you want? Let’s chat! Apply to work with me with the button below.