When You Should Start a Fan Page on Facebook, and How

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Katie Hellmuth's picture Submitted by Katie Hellmuth on   |  1 Comments

If you've been following our recent blog posts about Facebook and what it means to your and your business, then you'll know that journalist/author Marci Alboher posed a question to me about how to balance her professional friends in Facebook with her personal friends and family. This is a very interesting question because there are several ways to do it, strategically that is. As I was writing the article, literally five other articles spun out of it, as answers to questions led to more questions. Keep in mind, that no matter what you do in Facebook, there will always be new possibilities and challenges, because Facebook and other online outlets like this one are constantly changing and developing, so what worked six months ago might not be the best course today.

Go over to the HeyMarci blog and see how we tackled her question: "Should You Have a Fan Page on Facebook? (Part 1)". Here's how she started her article:

Lately I’ve been wondering about whether it’s time to move from a regular profile on Facebook to a fan page. It’s a conundrum I’ve been noticing a lot of buzz about lately.

Because I primarily use Facebook to interact with people about ideas around work/careers, it gets kind of muddy when I want to catch up with friends and family who are on Facebook, but whose news is lost amid the chatter of status updates from friends I don’t know personally. Say a friend from real life gets engaged or moves to Tahiti, there’s a good chance I’ll never know about it.

For now, my solution has been to create various “friends lists.” Using this nifty Facebook feature, I have one list called “friends I know,” which is a much smaller group of people than my total list of friends. That list allows me to view status updates from that limited group. I can also decide that only these “friends I know,” will see certain photos or parts of my profile.

But this is really only a partial fix because Facebook caps the number of friends a user can have at 5,000 people. And while I’m not there yet, I can imagine getting there some time soon. Then what?

Go read the answer, which depends on who you are (a writer, a boutique owner, a politician, etc) and what your goals are. Then comment and tell us what you think!

Category: 
Facebook
Social Media

Comments

Chrystal Bougon replied on

Thanks, Katie. I struggle with this. Esp since my business is around adult toys and romance products. I am trying to make this work, though. Also, loving twitter and am @BLISSCONNECTION on Twitter. I love so share blogging tips, seo info and social media ideas on Twitter and then sometimes tips and tricks with our adult products. It's a weird blend for sure!