Facebook page? Group? Account? What’s the difference?!

As I talk to people, I often realize that one of the key things that confuses people is understanding just what the difference is between the sections of Facebook. When I ask if someone has a Facebook page, they often say yes, or they tell me they have two and then I quickly figure out that what they actually have is an account.

So I’m going to break it down here in the hopes that it will lessen the confusion for everyone.

Facebook account (a.k.a. personal profile)

This is YOU on Facebook. When you sign up for Facebook and set up a password and then go in and add a photo and then start making connections with other people on Facebook by “friending” them, it is done through your personal profile.

Only individuals should have a Facebook account (there is an exception, but for simplicity we aren’t going to get into that). 

This is who I log in to Facebook as – this is my Facebook account.

Key distinctions:

• You have to be a person
• People can’t see any information you share (that isn’t made public) without being connected to you
• To make connections with someone both have to agree

Facebook page

A Facebook page is your business’ presence on Facebook.  By Facebook’s rules, businesses are not allowed to have an account and interact with other people on Facebook the way that people do.

Page is the distinguishing word here.  If someone says “page” they mean something that looks like this where you can go and like the page and allowing it to possibly get some of it’s content into your newsfeed.

Key distinctions:

• When you like a page you get immediate access, nobody has to approve anything
• There are analytics that lets a business measure the success of what they’re posting
• Information comes out of the page to people, but people’s information (other than basic demographic information) doesn’t come in to the page.

Facebook groups

There’s yet another kind of Facebook space that people can create, a Facebook group.  A group is like a discussion forum.  It is created by one person but everyone within the group can post to the rest of the group.  There are a variety of different kinds of groups, public ones (which are called open), private ones (which are called closed and secret ones that can’t be found by search at all.

They are great for many reasons, including planning committees, classroom discussions, clubs, etc.

Key distinctions:

• Only individuals (using your Facebook account) can be a member of a group, not business pages
• People can converse with each other without being Facebook friends. Other than what is posted within the group, people can only see information that is made public if they are not friends with you
• There are no analytics or options for advertising so it is not an alternative to a Facebook page, but can be used by a business to create more community

Leave a comment and let us know if this was helpful and if you’d like more of the language of Facebook broken down in future posts.

How to link your Facebook business page to your personal Facebook profile

I’m in a lot of groups on Facebook and they are a great way to network, meet new people, and find potential clients or service providers. I often don’t want to become friends with someone that I see in a Facebook group, but based on something they’ve said I’m interested in what they do for a living and want to find out more. So I click on their name, then click on about and whatever the link to where they work, only to find this:

Is your Facebook page linked to your personal account?

That suitcase is what is created when you just type in where you work into Facebook and is what you’ll find many people have in their about section. It doesn’t link to a business page and I’ve often wondered what the point of those suitcase pages are at all.

If you have a business, or are using social media to network, you need to make sure that you link an actual Facebook page into your about section. This will help people find you, connect with you, and allow you to build relationships with them.

How do you link a Facebook page to your account?

Setting it up so that your about section links to your Facebook page is quite simple if you know where to go or that you should be doing that in the first place.

1) Go to your personal profile and click on the pencil to the right of the About section in the left hand sidebar and select update info.

2) Start typing the name of the Facebook page you want to link to and select it.

3) Fill out all the pertinent information and click “add job.”

 

That’s it! You’ve now added a link to your Facebook page from the about section of your personal Facebook profile (and I’ve added an older job to mine) and if someone wants to find your place of work without adding you as a friend, they can now do that.  

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Are you freaking out because your Facebook reach is down?

If you’ve noticed that your Facebook reach is down, you definitely aren’t alone.  It’s frustrating – no doubt about it!  Less people are seeing your content than in the past. 

What this means for you as a page owner is that you may need to shift the way you’re doing things and how you think about Facebook as a tool.  Because of this change we’ve been having this conversation with people a lot so today I’m going to share some reasons I think it kind of makes sense that you’re seeing less, and a few things you can do to try to improve the situation.

Why is this happening?

1. Facebook’s Algorithm

Facebook’s algorithm is designed to show people what they want to see. As much as I enjoy knowing what my favourite brands are up to, I definitely want the ratio of friend to brand content to fall heavily on the friend side. That means our Facebook pages are showing up less in personal feeds.

2. Volume

There are over 1.25 billion Facebook accounts sharing more than 10 billion messages daily. If everything that was shared showed up in your timeline chronologically (as it does on Google+ or Twitter) then you wouldn’t see any more from a brand than you are now. There is simply no way for people to see everything being shared on Facebook.

3. This is no different than with other media

You don’t hear every ad that runs on the radio or every comment/conversation by the DJs. You don’t see every ad that plays on TV. Why would you expect to see everything one brand or person posts on Facebook?

TV and radio are a great analogy for a lot of what’s going on with Facebook, in my opinion.

When TV was a newer technology, brands could buy an ad on one of the big three networks and because the choice of channels was so limited, the chance of their audience seeing that ad was fairly high. This is very much like the early days of Facebook when people were only following a few brand pages and didn’t have hundreds of Facebook friends.

When people choose to watch TV now, they have hundreds of channels to choose from, or they can choose to fast forward through all the commercials or go straight to streaming Netflix and avoid commercials altogether. The chances of a brand’s commercial being seen by the public simply because it’s been put on TV has significantly decreased because of all the content available out there. The same applies to Facebook.

While many people like to talk about Facebook being a bait and switch situation with a free service that worked well now being one that has little reach, the landscape of Facebook is simply no longer what it was a couple of years ago. As the pickup within a medium increases, the reach is bound to decrease.

4. Revenue

People talk about how Facebook just wants your money a lot. I agree. They do.

I also think that makes sense. You can reach your audience for free on Facebook with a certain level of effort (like getting media attention using public relations) or you can pay for advertising (just like people do on TV, radio and newspapers) and get in front of more eyeballs. Facebook is trying to make money and their business model is one that includes advertising. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable thing for them to want the brands who are reaching their audiences on their network to pay for a some of it.

I don’t want to just spend my time justifying why your reach has decreased though, I want to offer some ideas on things you can do to bump it back up again.

What can you do?

Post regularly

Are you posting at least 1-2 times a day on your page? You should be posting at least that many times, if not more.

The more regularly and consistently you post good, valuable content, the more likely your audience is to see and interact with your content. That means they’ll be seeing your content in their feed more often in the future.

Analyze your content

Check your insights regularly. At least once a week, go and see what people are reacting to and take that into account when creating more content.

Is your audience clicking through on your links? Are people liking, commenting on or sharing the pictures you post? There is a ton of information in the insights that will help you make your content exactly what your audience is looking for.

What time is your audience online?

In the Facebook Insights section you can see what time your audience is online. Make sure that you’re sharing content throughout all of those times and not just the same times over and over again.  Then check to see if certain times are working better. (Building your Facebook presence requires patience and a willingness to test and tweak.)

There are certain times of day that are really popular. Your audience may be online but it’s harder to reach them because so much more content is being pushed out at that time (ads are more expensive during drive time radio for a reason). You may be better off posting at a time that is slightly less popular (9pm maybe?) and getting through to more people. Test it out and see what works!

Enlist your brand champions

You have a loyal following. There is nothing wrong with asking certain people to be more engaged on your page because it helps get the reach up. Ask them to turn notifications on and let them know you appreciate the support they are giving your page. It’s also nice to be willing to do that for a few other pages.

I have notifications turned on for about 5 business pages and I try to like, comment and share content on those pages as much as possible, because I know it’s helpful and valuable to a business that I believe in.

Pay for advertising

I mentioned this a bit earlier when I talked about Facebook wanting revenue. I think it’s reasonable to spend a bit of money on Facebook advertising. In fact, I think it’s a really good idea.

I’ve paid for advertising in print. Facebook advertising is dirt cheap in comparison, but you can target so specifically it’s amazing - done right, Facebook ads can deliver far more value than print ads. Don’t think that because you’ve heard boosting posts is a waste of your money (it definitely can be) or because people are complaining about Facebook advertising that it isn’t something worth doing. I’ll admit it takes time to learn how to do it really well, and you may want to enlist someone to help you do that that, but Facebook advertising DOES work and is something every business should consider and not just scoff at.

Reset your expectations

Things have changed. We may have gotten up to 50%+ reach on some posts in the past and we aren’t getting that any more. But if you think about the fact that people ARE seeing your content, that you’re providing value to the people who really want it, and you’re able to grow that audience at incredibly low cost, instead of just looking at the decrease in numbers you’ll see that spending your time on Facebook is still worthwhile.

Set some very realistic goals and expectations and see if you can meet them. Work to improve your engagement and reach from where you’re at now instead of looking into the past. Be consistent and provide quality content and you’re off to a great start. Just don’t forget to TELL people to come to your Facebook page and like you. And WHY. Why is it worth their time to offer you real estate in their packed Newsfeed?

So there you have it - my thoughts on the Facebook reach situation. To summarize it all quickly - yes, it’s happening. I don’t think it’s surprising or awful, but I do agree it’s frustrating and disappointing. We all just need to do our best by creating great content and putting our audiences first to make the time we spend on Facebook as worthwhile as possible.

Do you think Facebook still has value or has the algorithm destroyed its value for businesses? Leave a comment and let us know!

Why your business should have a Facebook Page (not a Profile)

Which is the right way to promote a business?Recently Lara wrote a post giving some advice around whether business owners should promote their business through their personal profiles. Ultimately, we feel that decision is one that can be very different from one person to the next - just as how we all use social networks and what we share is different. Some business owners like to keep their profiles personal and private. Others supplement their networking efforts by extending it to their personal profile. There isn’t really a right or wrong answer if you’re comfortable with your choice.

Someone who shared our post made the comment that they don’t ever recommend it. I was curious as to why, so I asked. Their response was that the personal profile doesn’t have insights, ads or third-party apps. Very sensible reasons if the post was about using a personal profile exclusively to promote a business on Facebook. Just as there was some confusion about what Lara was writing about, there is some confusion around what is best for businesses. 

Facebook Personal Profiles

Personal profiles (or personal accounts) are designed for individuals and require reciprocity. If I send you a friend request and you accept, we see content from each other (assuming we aren’t using any privacy filters). If you decline my friend request, I see nothing of yours and you see nothing of mine (unless it’s public). The idea is that if we are “friends”, we know each other well enough to connect and share our lives with each other through Facebook. 

Following

There is an exception to Facebook’s rule of reciprocity: following. This feature was introduced about two years ago and was originally called subscribe. It allows non-friends to follow public updates for any individual that has the feature activated. If you follow me, you can see anything I post publicly in your timeline, but I can’t see anything of yours. Some higher profile individuals actually deleted or stopped using their Facebook Pages after this feature was released.

Facebook Pages

Back in 2007, Facebook opened up to the world at large. Personal profiles were the only thing available, but businesses were already starting to see the value of all these people that were held captive by pokes and wall posts. The answer to this problem was Pages. They were a way for businesses to acquire an unlimited fan base and gave the fans access to the page without allowing the page to see personal details of its fans. It was a win-win situation for everybody.

(Who else remembers becoming a fan of “sleeping in” or “the cold side of the pillow”? Those were the good old days when life was a tad simpler and there was no EdgeRank.)

Businesses should not have Profiles

Personal profiles are for people. Facebook has even specified in its terms of service that: “You will not use your personal timeline primarily for your own commercial gain, and will use a Facebook Page for such purposes.”

That’s the biggest reason we advise against businesses using Profiles. Facebook has the right to take your Profile (or Page) down, which means you lose everything you’ve worked to do. Here are some other reasons: 

• Page Insights show the data behind the performance of every post you publish so you know what time is best to post and what types of posts are getting more engagement from your audience. 
• Pages allow the option of running ads to extend your reach. 
• Finally, Pages allow admins to install third-party apps for newsletter signups, contests and numerous other purposes.

Since Facebook has implemented EdgeRank and limits what we see, I’ve seen many page admins talk about switching to a profile or a group so people definitely see their content. However, notifications are easily turned off in groups and I won’t friend an entity that uses a Personal Profile. And EdgeRank affects Personal Profiles in the same way that it affects content from Pages.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: if you have a business that you want to promote on Facebook, you should set up a business Page for it because that’s how Facebook says it needs to be. And also because you can control and see so much more than you can with just a profile. You can still share content from you business Page to your personal profile (if you’re comfortable doing so) too!

Do you know any businesses that are using a personal profile? How do you feel about that?

You probably wouldn't like it if Facebook got rid of its algorithm

One of the most common complaints I see about Facebook on a regular basis is that people want to see everything in their feed. When you choose to accept or initiate a friend request, it is because you want to connect on a regular basis with that individual. When you choose to like a page, it is because you want to see that page’s content. So, it’s frustrating for many Facebook users that Facebook has developed the EdgeRank algorithm that essentially decides what is delivered to our newsfeed by interpreting our actions.

I’ve given an overview of EdgeRank in the past, but time has created more and complex changes to the algorithm. Each time Facebook tweaks or announces a major change, the chorus of complaints about Facebook’s attempts to read our minds based on actions (likes, comments, clicks, shares, etc.) gets a little louder. As users, we want to see what we want to see. As page admins, we want our audience to see everything without having to pay for it.

I get it. I understand it. But I also see other sides to this problem.

Let’s talk about money

Has Facebook engineered its algorithm to encourage page admins to promote posts, thereby creating a market for its advertising services that might not otherwise exist?

They sure did. Just like Google designed the AdWords program to boost reach for companies on certain search terms. If you’re okay with the “free” search rank you get, you don’t invest. If not, you have the choice to boost yourself or target search words/phrases you want your business to show at the top. But is that all someone with a website can do? No, they can also employ someone to take steps to optimize their website - something that also costs money, but is considered by many to be worth the cost because of the impact it has.

Facebook cannot pick and choose who has to pay for better reach. It’s frustrating to me on my page where my personal blog content is posted that I don’t get better reach, but I’m not going to pay for more people to see my hobby. As a personal blogger, my audience is never going to be huge and I don’t post regularly enough to maintain a large reach. I’m okay with that because I know that if Facebook tried to distinguish between Karen the blogger and Karen’s business, my business would have to pay more and I’m not okay with that. We won’t get into how businesses would inevitably try to game such a system.

Facebook is a public company with an obligation to its shareholders to report profits and growth in its bottom line. The best way to do that is through ad revenue from a system that utilizes the piles and piles of data that Facebook has to target its users more specifically and accurately. (This could lead to a privacy discussion, but that’s another post for another day.) As individuals, we wouldn’t get to use Facebook without some way to monetize the platform. As business owners, we wouldn’t have one of the least expensive ad units available to us, along with powerful data to target the right people. The truth is, we had a free ride for years and got used to it. We shouldn’t assume that similar changes won’t be implemented as each of the other networks (Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, etc.) looks to improve the bottom line as they scale for growth.

Are you really, really sure you want to see everything?

If you do, I have the answer for you.

Go to this page and click on create list. Then you can go through the process of creating a custom list with all of your friends and all of your pages that you’ve liked in the list! And guess what? That new list isn’t affected by the algorithm. You will see everything in chronological order. All of it. Every status update, picture, video, friend connection, page like, and on and on and on.

The truth is, on January 6th, I got really frustrated with Facebook’s algorithm because I was watching the Florida State Seminoles play the Auburn Tigers in the last ever BCS National Championship title game. This year marked 15 years since the last time my ‘Noles took home the trophy. The game was intense and a nail biter to the last 13 seconds. (Yes, that’s how close we were to losing!) I was refreshing Facebook for three hours looking for any updates about the game. Then I decided to check the smart list that shows me updates from my former high school classmates. And my smart list stream was suddenly flooded with dozens and dozens of updates about the game. That was the first time I fully appreciated the frustration I’ve always heard from others.

And yet, I don’t think I would choose to use a Facebook that doesn’t have an algorithm on a regular basis. Would I miss things I’d like to see making this choice? Sure, but I’m not going to know the difference since I won’t see them. And I have that handy list that I can use when I feel like checking out what is happening with “everyone”.

The problem with seeing everything

Before you get excited about getting around Facebook’s algorithm, let me tell you what seeing everything means:

1. All those game updates you’ve hidden from your newsfeed because you don’t care? They show in my “Everything” list.
2. Remember when every page your friends liked showed up in your newsfeed a few years ago? Ya, you can totally get that back again.
3. Same with “so-and-so is now friends with what’s his name” updates.

I set up my “Everything” list about 3 or 4 weeks ago. After using it for a couple of days, I went back to the Newsfeed because it shows me enough of what I want to see day-to-day. I’ll pop in to the list on occasion, but it’s not where I live when I’m spending a little time on Facebook.

The reality of seeing everything

It’s overwhelming. I’m certainly not the average Facebook user, so with over 500 friends and roughly 700 pages I’ve liked (I just unliked about 900 not too long ago, for the record), that is a LOT of information. (Average users have around 200ish friends and likes about 40 pages.) I cannot possibly truly follow all the people and businesses I am connected to through Facebook. The friends and pages I interact with regularly show up in my feed. When I want to check on someone I haven’t talked to in a while, I’ll go to their timeline and leave a note or like/comment on a recent post.

We filter what we see everywhere. I follow almost 3000 people on Twitter, but I skim through my timeline, skipping over content I’m not interested in. I have lists that segment people I’m following by topic so I can look for their posts more easily. Do I truly follow 3000 people? No. No one does if they’re honest with themselves.

What are your thoughts about the Facebook algorithm? Do you like it, hate it, feel indifferent to it?