Discover the advantages that a Fan Page brings to your business as opposed to a personal Facebook profile.

Today we all know the reach that social networks and especially Facebook have to make anything viral. Public figures, companies and businesses have taken advantage of the advertising options it has and, for many brands, it has become a fundamental part of their marketing strategy.

In this wide range of social networks Facebook is leading, as it is still the one with the most registered users. Compared to its competitors, it has two advantages: the first is that users of this network come in all ages, genders, educational levels and social classes. The second is that it allows the sharing of content in all formats: text, images and videos. These features make this network an essential element for communication with your customers and, of course, for the advertising of your brand.

Perhaps, you have been using this network for many years in a personal way and now that you have a business you still use your personal profile to promote it or you have decided to open a profile for your brand. If you are in this condition unfortunately you are not taking full advantage of the capacity that Facebook has to work in favor of your business.

The first thing you should know is that in this social network you can register two different types of profiles, the first is a personal profile and the second is a “Fan Page“. Each of them has very different objectives and, therefore, special characteristics.

A personal profile is the page that a person creates to be in touch with family and friends, through it you can meet new people, share interests, pictures and videos.

A Fan Page is a profile designed for companies, businesses and public people. It has very clear differences with the personal profile, which we will explain here in more detail and also how you can use them to your advantage.

Differences between a personal profile and a Fan Page

1. Unlimited “followers” vs 5,000 “friends”

The number of friends on your profile and the number of fans on your Fan Page is perhaps the most significant and important difference between the two types of profiles on this social network.

While in your personal profile you can only have 5,000 contacts as friends; famous people, public persons and especially businesses are quickly overtaken by that number, which also limits the reach of their posts.

It is precisely for them that Facebook allows the creation of a special profile, the Fan Page, where instead of having friends you have unlimited followers or fans to whom your publications will reach.

This difference also allows you to save a little time, because while in a personal profile you have to send and accept friend requests, in a Fan Page the user who is interested in your brand or business only has to give “like” and automatically have access to your content.

As you can imagine the advantage is the possibility of making advertising campaigns, which include text, image and video, aimed at a large scale and not only for five thousand users.

2. It’s visible to everyone

Another of the biggest and most significant differences between the Fan Page and the personal profile is visibility. While in personal profiles you choose the degree of visibility of photos, posts, comments, cover photos, making them public or just for your friends; in your Fan Page everything is public from the beginning.

Your page is even visible to those who are not registered on Facebook; this means you’re your content is indexed in search engines and can be easily found on Google.

3. Multiple administrators

We know how valuable time is when you are at the head of a business and how important it is to delegate functions, in this sense a Fan Page also offers an advantage, because it allows you to add several administrators, unlike a personal profile in which only you can do it.

In this sense, you can delegate your Facebook page to one or more people so that they can publish content and interact with your audience at the same time, thus improving the experience of your followers, by feeling that behind that account there is a human being with whom they can interact.

An obvious advantage is that if for some reason you can’t access your Fan Page, some other administrator will be able to do it, so you won’t lose the account as it usually happens with personal profiles.

4. You can use applications to give a professional look to the page

From your personal profile it seems that you can’t do much to customize the look of the page, however from your Fan Page you have a world of possibilities to optimize and improve the look of your brand or business page, thanks to the ability to add applications.

Some will allow you to improve the appearance of your publications, others allow you to implement strategies such as surveys or contests to improve interaction with your followers.

To add them just enter the configuration, click on the Apps menu, then click on add or request app if it’s from a third party. Here are some of the most popular and useful ones:

• Heyo is an application that will improve the advertising of a product, as it can be used to create contests, promotions and offers. You don’t need to know HTML, as it is simple and intuitive. For now, there are only 8 templates, but they are totally customizable.
• Woobox allows you to create coupons, sweepstakes, surveys and create offer pages, as well as personalize all the actions on your Fan Page. The promotions you make are also integrated into your Twitter profile.
• Tab Foundry is a free application that allows you to personalize your page by adding and modifying graphics and background colors, as well as adding multimedia content.

Remember that in addition to these applications you can add links to social networks such as Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to your Fan Page.

5. Statistics service

Knowing the people who follow you is very important to design advertising campaigns, improve or change any product or service. You might think that to achieve this goal you have to invest a lot of money and time doing surveys, however your Fan Page has a free solution.

Another difference between a personal profile and a Fan Page is that with the latter you have Facebook Insight, a very complete section of statistics about your followers, which will help you understand who is following you, since you will know the average age of those who have given “like” to your page, their gender, geographical location and the time they spend on your profile.

In addition, you will know at what times and days there are more people viewing your profile. Get the maximum benefit from this tool by analyzing each publication in detail. This way, you will be able to evaluate if your strategy in this social network is working and how you can improve it.

If you only have a personal profile for your brand, it’s ok, but you should open a Fan Page as soon as possible, so you can take advantage of all the features in favor of the marketing of your brand or business.

You can make your Fan Page from your profile, easily, because the main characteristics like the name, the profile photo and the cover photo are kept in your Fan Page, and you can also select the images and videos of your biography that will appear in your new page.

Let us know if you think a Fan Page is indispensable for your brand or business. We’d love to hear your opinion.