Should I Have a Facebook Business Page or Personal Profile for Direct Sales Business

I am regularly asked the question – should I create a Facebook business page or just use my personal profile for my Direct Sales business, and if I do make one, how do I combine the two so they work together for the best exposure? We will cover that on today’s show!

Welcome to the Street Smart Wealth Podcast, show #149. Click the icon, top left (right between to two title links) to open the player and listen in!

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Should I use a Facebook Business Page or my Personal Profile for my Direct Sales Business

It’s an ongoing debate, whether to use a business page or your personal profile to conduct business on Facebook. In this training, I’m going to share the pros and cons of both, and how to combine the two for maximum reach!

We’ve covered this already, but it bears repeating.

When you take your business online (in addition to your offline, in-person networking), you extend your reach from just the people in your warm market – your friends and family, their friends and those you meet while out and about – to the billions of people online.

When you work your warm market, you typically need to reach out to people, when you work online, you can attract people to you.

I developed a true “pinch me” business when I would wake up, and find new leads and contacts from people who contacted me to ask about my business and product line.

And, I have met some of my very best friends this way!

On Facebook there are different types of entities – people (personal profiles), groups (open or closed groups of people) and pages (used by businesses, charities, celebrities, and so on).

So, you have a personal Timeline, why not have a Facebook business timeline, too, right? Here is why a business Facebook timeline is so important. Not to be techie, but Facebook is basically a closed system that is not indexed by Google. Facebook Business Timelines ARE indexed by Google though. This just basically means that people can find your Facebook business timeline in Google!

You have 3 opportunities to connect with people – your friends, your followers and your business page followers.

When I started on Facebook, business pages did not exist so I learned how to carefully keep my business alive on facebook, and yet in the background so as not to offend those who did not want to know about it.

And, I view it like I do my real estate friends. Each week, many of my friends in real estate post details about their opn houses they are hosting. It’s not at all offensive to me and they aren’t blatant about WHY it’s the best house ever and why I should buy it.

Think about this as you create your own business info that you gently share.

Remember the 80/20 rule and the concept of Facebook being like Cheers, the TV show from the 90s, where everyone gathered in a social pub after work!

There was talk about the wife, the kids, vacation, and jobs. Keep your life colorful, interesting and entertwine all aspects together to showcase who you are – not all business and not all play.

So, why use a Facebook business page? Here are some top reasons for why to use a Facebook Business Page:

If you check the Facebook’s Terms of Service, you will see that they clearly spell out that it is against policy to use a personal page for business purposes. They could shut down your account. You can be generic about what you do, and I recommend this, but if you are continually pumping your business info out, you could get slapped! Big Time! I know, I hear you saying – but everyone else is doing it…

It can be very annoying to friends and family to see ongoing business ads on your personal page. These are social sites first, remember. Most people view this as spam. You don’t want to alienate the very people you hope to attract, right?

Constantly posting business advertising content to your personal profile turns people off, who may in turn unfriend you, block your feed, and could even report your posts as spam, especially if they are not true, real life friends. I have known several people who have been shut down!

You may find yourself in the dreaded Facebook “jail” if too many reports are made against your personal account. Ouch, this is no fun, and there are a number of companies who have been blocked due to too many people spamming links. If your company is blocked, and you have references to your company name on your profile, you can also get blocked.

Make your two Facebook entities work together by giving you a way to share business content from your business page to your personal profile. Don’t share every update but pick the best ones and share as you would share anything else you find on Facebook.

A business page is open to anyone, not just your friends and contacts. And, this includes Google as business pages are indexed on Google and profiles are not.

Your personal profile is limited to 5000 friends, yet a facebook page can have hundreds, thousands and even millions of fans.

With a business page, you can run targeted ads to build your followers to your business page and attract people who are interested in your product and opportunity. This is a whole other show we will get to!

When you build your fan base, your ordinary posts can be seen by hundreds or thousand of people every day.
This type of reach is what creates true attraction marketing where people will come to YOU asking about your product and opportunity. After I had my content out there for a while, I started generating leads on a daily basis who came to me.

When you post to your business page, you have the option to share that post from your personal profile and this is one way the two entities can work well together. You are seen as just SHARING content and not originating it.

And, you never know who else will see it and share it, expanding your reach even further!

Don’t get discouraged if it takes a little bit of time, all good things do, right?

Use Hashtags on your business page and expand your reach. While hashtags have not caught on as quickly on Facebook as Instagram and Twitter, they do work and are growing.

Be consistent in posting value, including your business link.

Like your own page from your personal profile and share some of the business content from time to time, and this is how you get the most bang for your buck.