Should I Use My Personal Facebook Profile for My Book or Business?

This is a question I see a LOT – “Should I Use My Personal Facebook Profile for My Book or Business?” And I always advise NOT to use your personal page/profile. I have the reasons listed below, but overall, the reasoning is that your personal Facebook page is meant to be about you – and is for your friends, family, etc. And while some people have public profiles or share everything with everyone, it’s not intended for business. And one of the biggest differences is that with your personal profile someone has to be friends with you to “follow” you, then you kind of “force” them to share their profile with you. As a business page, they can follow you, and you still don’t have access to their private profile. I, myself, do not friend request people I don’t know – meaning if I want to follow you as an author, but have to be your friend, unless we’ve established a some sort of friendship, I’m going to just pass you by and think “I wish they had a page”.

So whether you’re an author, or if you’re starting up a business, or getting your business on Facebook, you should be creating a business page (it’s changed over the years, but I believe it’s currently referred to as “Pages”). When you do this, it links to your personal profile page, and that’s how you access everything. You don’t have to log in and out of different accounts – it’s linked to yours to make switching between the two easy.

Basically, having a business page is more professional and helps a wider audience feel comfortable in wanting to follow you. Here are the benefits of using this feature, and keeping your personal profile personal:

• People Follow or Like your page – they’re not friend requesting you. If a client or someone from your audience has to friend request you to “follow” you, then they are also committing to you seeing their information and full profile. As a “Page”, you can’t see that persons entire profile, meaning they know they can follow you and you don’t have access to their private profile.
• Meta Business Suite – With a business page you have access to the Meta Business Suite which allows you to view analytics. If you have Instagram too, you can simultaneously post on Facebook and IG in one easy post. AND you can schedule posts which is HUGELY helpful!
• You can invite people to like/follow your page – It’s easy to invite your friends to follow your page, allowing you to hopefully get some followers immediately to start growth.
• You can still follow/like pages from your business page
• Page Managers – With a business page, you can have “managers” that have access to your page should you ever hire someone to help out with your social media. They don’t have access to your personal profile, only your page, and they can be removed at anytime.
• Reviews and Ratings – On a business page, people can rate your business or leave a review – a great way for others to easily see what people have to say about your book or business!

Now, does it mean you can’t use your personal profile, or create one for your book or business? Of course not – it is 100%  your choice. And I do occasionally stumble across someone who is using their profile successfully for their business, which is great! So it can definitely be done. I look it it as one of those things where, in general, the answer is to create a page. I hope you found this helpful!