As a result of writing for Forbes I’ve started getting more people following me on Twitter, my blog, and on Facebook. No offense, but I’m not sure I want to share the personal things I’ve gotten used to sharing on Facebook with all of you. With my Twitter profile and my blog that has never been an issue because I generally don’t post things of a personal nature there. But Facebook is different. It’s where I post family photos and my thoughts on economics, politics, religion, and everything else that shouldn’t be discussed around the dinner table.
I’ve had a Facebook page for some time that was connected to my blog, and so it would seem natural to spruce it up and use this page for business while keeping my personal profile private. There are additional benefits to using a Facebook page for business purposes such as unlimited friend count (instead of the limit of 5,000 for my personal profile), the ability to advertise my page (which I can’t do for my personal profile), and access to Facebook Insights, which give you valuable data. It seemed like there is no downside to switching to having a Facebook page for my business purposes, but like anything else worth doing in life, it’s worth doing a little research before investing a lot of time.
Early in my research I found contrarian opinions on the worth of a Facebook page. Stephanie Chandler points out, “if you have 1,000 Facebook fans on your business page and you post an announcement about an upcoming event you’re hosting, you will be lucky if 5% to 10% of your followers see your post.” She adds that many people are reporting response rates much lower. This is confirmed by Elan Dekel, who set up a Facebook page for a client of his, only to find out that 1% to 5% of the 6,000 people who had “liked” the page were seeing updates from that page when they logged into Facebook.
To get some more in-depth perspectives on the wisdom, or lack thereof, of setting up a Facebook page for the business side of my life, I decided to talk directly to three experts. Jay Oatway is the author of the forthcoming book Mastering Story, Community and Influence: How to Use Social Media to Become a Social Leader, and has been named one of the top 50 social media influencers. Joseph Allen is the co-Founder and Chief Homie ofLava Surf, an advertising agency with social swagger providing hard nosed consulting. Michael Micheliniis the co-Founder of Social Agent, an Asia-based firm helping companies leverage social media for sales. What follows started out as a bit of Q&A on the topic of Facebook pages for businesses, but in some cases turned into a larger discussion about the proper role of social media for your business. Bear in mind those giving the answers are answering within the context of their own experiences, and they are directly answering my questions–not engaging in a conversation with each other.