Brand for the Solopreneur: Should I use my Personal

Facebook Page for my Business?

I get asked this question regularly as I see people who are trying to build a business though a hobby on the side of their job or are a full blown solopreneur. The challenge is to be able to streamline and anyone who knows me knows I’ll try to find the fastest way to get a result!

So, there are a few thinks about that you can only do on a Facebook page:

• Advertising: You can only advertise to people outside your friends through a business page. So if you want to target a certain age group, location or people who have a certain interest or create an offer you’ll need a business page to do that. This relates to advertising a product, service or your website.

• Get feedback and promote your page: If you have a post that has been quite popular it is highlighted to show you that it’s been well received. This means you might be interested in investing some money for the next few days to promote to a wider audience who could be interested in the work you do. You can’t get this feedback on personal page.

• Plugins: You can create marketing pages, newsletter signups and contact pages so you have more call to action to drive people to connect with you.

• Some people don’t want to connect with you personally as they want to be more private so they would rather follow you on your Facebook business page.

So my suggestions are:
I recommend adding that you’re employed at your professional page in your “About” section so that people can connect with you there. It should look like this:

You can click on my personal page and see where to click to my business page here.

• Put your professional page as the Facebook link in all touch points, ie. Signature block, handouts, newsletters, website, daily wakeup calls, keynotes etc. Show a picture of your professional Facebook page and how it looks currently in your presentation so the reader/client/audience know they’re on your professional page when they go looking for you.

• Use your professional page as the original post for anything work related and then share it in your personal page. This makes it clear to your personal connections that you have a professional page and you’re sharing that professional content. Anything personal comes through your personal feed alone.

• I suggest to treat both as professional as some clients and colleagues know you personally and professionally. If they connect with you personally suggest them that they may like to follow your professional page as you do a lot of your ‘tips and tricks’ over there.  Otherwise create a list on your Facebook page for personal content.

The lines are certainly blurred for many in this space, but if you're starting your own business the more you can get clients, colleagues and customers to like your professional page the better. Obviously you can still connect personally if your personal content is ‘on brand’ though. :)

What have been your experiences?  Share them here!