A presence on Facebook is often an important component of a businesses’ online marketing strategy. It’s important to take a few moments and educate yourself about the technical differences of Facebook Pages, Profiles and Groups in order to assure that you’re using the correct format for the correct application.
Facebook Page
A Facebook Page is a Facebook presence for a product, a business, an organization or even your favorite TV show. When you “Like” a Page, you start seeing the Page’s updates in your feed. This page is linked to your individual Facebook profile and doesn’t have a separate login. A Page can have several admins that be added or removed at any time. Additionally, Facebook Pages aren’t allowed to invite friends or maintain a list of friends, they can only maintain a list of profiles who “Like” their page. Facebook Page admins aren’t able to see any content that a Facebook Profile has set to private. So, if you’re Facebook fans of say, Ecreativeworks’s Facebook Page, as an admin, I won’t be able to snoop around the photos of your most recent camping adventure if you have your photos set to be viewed only by Facebook friends. Unless, of course, we are Facebook friends then you should expect a whole lotta snooping.
Facebook Profile
A Facebook profile is your individual profile and meant to represent a single human individual. It’s what your Facebook friends see when they click on your name. Your Facebook profile includes your photos and any personal information you choose to share, or not share. In order to be an admin of a Facebook Page, you’ll have to have a Facebook Profile. Sometimes, businesses will mistakenly set up a Facebook Profile instead of their Facebook Page. It’s not possible to change over to a Facebook Page from a Profile if this occurs.
Facebook Group
Think of a Facebook Group as a club. A Facebook Group may contain members of a family, a team, a class, a book club, or may be just for fun to share a common interest. Depending on the privileges set up by the admin(s), a group member can post videos, links, images, events or even post or edit documents. Groups can even have their own email address that populate the Group wall when an email is sent. Users can also adjust their settings to be notified via email when group members share new content. Facebook Groups have three different privacy settings:
- Open: content is public.
- Closed: members are public but content is private.
- Secret: members and content is top secret and not searchable.
For more helpful tips, see the Facebook Help Center.
I hope this clears up any confusion you may have. Just remember: Page= Company or Brand, Profile= individual human and Group=club.
Happy Facebooking! Stay tuned for more of my Facebok How-To’s!