First of all I want to tell you that using your personal Facebook account for business is not highly recommended. Why? Because you need to make it published and by doing so it means you are opening the gate to your personal life too. Normally people separates their personal Facebook account from the business one but for some people the work is probably just too much. You need to log in and log out so many time, and maybe once you get lost and get mixed up. So if you are one of those who think it’s better to use just one Facebook account for everything including running your business empire, you might want to take a look at the 10 things to do to use your Facebook account for business.
1. Profile Picture
Remember that your profile page will not only be seen by your friends and family but also your colleagues, acquaintance and potential clients to your business. Therefore put your best photograph, not necessarily the passport style but the one that show your face clearly and the only you. Don’t put up your family photo or your children’s and most importantly do not put up your wedding photos because all that are not relevant. Your photo should be able to send a message to your potential clients that you are professional and reliable.
2. Re-arrange Album
Since this is your personal account it is understood that you have various photo albums displaying you with your family and friends. Well you don’t have to remove those because they are indeed precious unless you think the otherwise. You can just change the privacy setting so not everybody can see those albums.
3. Contact Details
A wise advise telling you to not provide your real home address. If you have an office, which is totally different with your house, you should put the address. Otherwise you can put your local number and email address. If you have your own website then it is a great idea to put it up too.
4. Clear Name
Sometimes people put up hideous name for their Facebook profile like “Momma Bear” or “Awesome Girl”. These kind of name can send a wrong message to people who see it especially those who don’t know the real you. So if you are using these kind of names please change it into your own name. By doing so you will be easily found when someone is actually searching for you.
5. Timeline
Now clean up your timeline. Do you have friends who run online business and go by the unethical thing like tagging everybody in their friends’ list? Remove that tags and you can send a polite message to him/her that you would really appreciate if he/she never tags you again and that if you want to buy from her you will just go to her page to order. You also need to remove or hide the unnecessary updates or status post from your friend in your timeline. There is a small button on the top right corner of every updates where you can click to chose whether you want the updates to be removed or hidden.
6. Smart Updates
Probably you are so used to updating your status feed with something as not important as “cleaning my nose, ooh gross!” or “I hate you!”. Because you are now using your Facebook profile for your business too updating that kind of feed is not a good idea. Your potential client may think you as playful and irresponsible person. Instead do post things that really related to your business. If you sell clothing then you want to share information on current fashion trends or your best offers.
7. Feeds Update Management
Whenever you update your feed you have the option whether to make it public or to select certain people who can see the updates. Use this as much as possible to avoid confusion from your clients or the potential ones.
8. Refrain from Spamming
Spam is one thing that almost every people working in virtual world hate about. Thus don’t start it. Don’t go around offering your service to people without their consent. You hate it when online seller tag you on their sale without your permission right? If you are not careful someone (possibly a potential one) can block you forever from his account. It will be your loss.
9. Be Social and Stop Playing Game
It’s Facebook. It’s a social network. In fact, it’s the social network. What you do when you use social network? Yeap, you are socializing. So be social, build your network. Befriended those whom you think can be your potential client. But please be careful to approve any friends request. Do validity check first so you won’t end up dealing with internet trolls or worst, hackers. You also need to stop playing those online games. You want to be considered as a hard worker and reliable not a lazy time waster personality.
10. Back up with a Blog
No matter how great and hi-tech Facebook is, you don’t own it. You will have certain limitation to improve the page like you really want it. Unlike a blog. If you have a blog, you can do whatever you want in it’s page. You can put your items, your service, your best offers and jazzy up the look of your home page with colors, pictures and fancy letters. Go to the popular blog provider like Blogger or WordPress, or better you buy your own domain and hosting
Now that you know all the 10 things to do to use your facebook account for business, are you ready to actually do it?
This post linked to Top Ten Tuesday
Disclaimer: This post contain affiliate links that I am joining in. It doesn’t change the price but it will take you to their site to show the various product on offer.
Theresa says:
Great tips. I started a fb page, but I think fb sucks. I have over 4000 fans but they only send my posts to 50 of them. I am spending more time on other social media and trying to steer clear of fb!
CuteCoco says:
Yeah…it is a bit tricky doing FB page..but how come they only send your posts to 50??..I think twitter is more convenient indeed! and g+ too