If you’re an artist/performer building up your Facebook presence via a personal Facebook account, you should almost certainly be doing so via a Facebook “Page” instead.
8 Reasons You Need a “Page”
1) No Limits. Facebook currently limits personal accounts to 5,000 “friends.” Pages have no limits.
2) Analytics. Facebook provides demographic data to Page administrators about those who have “Liked” the Page, including age, gender, country and city, language, and interactions (posts, video/audio plays, etc.). This is valuable information, and you can’t get it from your personal Facebook account.
3) Outreach – Updates. You can send Updates to followers (or “Likers,” if you like) of your Page. You can target Updates by demography – just women, or just senior citizens, or just Californians… making sure your message goes only to those most likely to see and act on it. Or you can just blast all of your followers.
4) Outreach – Ads. You know those ads you see in the right sidebar when you’re on Facebook? You can promote your Page – or a specific event or even a link outside of Facebook – via a Facebook Ad. Like Updates, you can target the ads demographically, geographically, etc. You can buy the ads via cost-per-click or cost-per-impression, and you set a daily maximum budget. If you’re promoting a concert, new release, television appearance, etc., this can be extremely useful.
5) Administration. You can add administrators to your Facebook Page, who can help you maintain it by posting photos, answering questions, etc. Any posts/uploads will appear to come from the Page’s profile, as opposed to the personal account of whoever’s doing the updating. This can be a tremendous help, particularly if you generate lots of links, photos, or news, or if you’re in a band with several members and more than one of you wants to make updates. It can also help to have someone else watch out for spam or abusive posts and delete/report them.
6) Page customization. You can customize your Facebook Page with tabs to highlight events, contests, new releases, your Twitter feed. You can even drop a store right into your Page (see below). You can’t do that with a personal page.
7) Privacy. This may be the best reason of all. Having a Page that’s distinct from your personal Facebook account lets you keep the two separate. People who “Like” your Page won’t be able to see that you’re the Page admin or have any access to your personal account. So you can post photos of your kids on your personal page, and interact with your friends and family, without having all your fans privy to it.
8) Custom URL. Just as with personal accounts, Facebook pages can have custom URLs (e.g. www.facebook.com/curtsmithofficial). Grab your professional name before someone else does. Note: If someone has already taken your professional name, and that name is copyrighted, you can report it to Facebook here and request to have it transferred to your page.
Are there downsides? A few, possibly.
1) Transitioning. If you’ve built up quite a following on your personal account, it can take some nudging to get them to “Like” your Page and refer to that instead of your personal account. There might also be some bruised egos who feel they’ve been “demoted” if they don’t get to be “Friends” with you anymore. That being said, the sooner you establish your Page, the fewer feathers you’re likely to ruffle.
2) Restricted. You and your Admin(s) can respond to posts and comments on your own Page as “you,” but if you post on someone else’s page, it will show up as being made from your personal account. In other words, you can’t post as your Page on another account’s Wall. So if you want to keep your personal account private, you’ll need to restrict your interactions with fans to your Page only.
3) Security. Adding Admins to your page enables them to post as you. Presumably you’d only make someone you trust implicitly an Admin, and in this sense it’s no different than having a webmaster, but it’s something to mention for those who might be concerned.
Ready to start your Page?
Click here to go to Facebook’s “Create A Page” screen.
Questions or comments? Please leave them below.