Fan Pages, Not Profiles

Posted on June 24, 2010

Many people create a Facebook personal profile for their business. Why is that? I think because it seems easier and is more familiar for them. But below I list five reasons why you should create a Facebook Fan Page instead:

1. If you’re creating a page for your business, you want it to be public, not private. You want as many people to find it as possible. In most cases, your fan page is visible to everyone. (The exceptions
   are if you set a minimum age limit OLDER than age 13 – then people must log in.) A personal profile, on the other hand will be more private.
2. For a fan page, you want fans not friends. You want people to like your page. With a personal profile, you have to approve every friend. For a fan page, you don’t want to worry about that, you just want people to like your page. As people like your page, your page will show up on the personal profiles of their friends too; ultimately bringing you more fans.
3. You don’t want a limit on the number of fans for your page, do you? A personal profile is restricted to 5,000 friends. Better to start with a fan page and then you’ll never have to worry about that limit. Plus once you have a personal profile, you’ll have to start over to get fans for your page.
4. Two words: Search Engines. Personal profiles are, by definition, not indexed by Google and other search engines.If you have a page for your business, you’ll want it indexed by the search engines. Fan pages are always index-able by search engines.
5. One word: Advertising: You can advertise your fan page to reach more people. You can base the advertising on demographics: age, sex, profession, etc.

It may seem harder to create a fan page, but in the long run you’ll be glad you went that way to begin with. If you start with a personal profile, you’ll one day see the need to create a fan page instead.

Ten Twitter Suggestions

Posted on June 8, 2010

I might have gone as far as to call this post “Ten Twitter Rules,” but there’s probably someone on Twitter that has a different opinion on each of these. So here are some suggestions that would be rules if I ruled the world.

1. Always include a space on either side of RT, DM or any @mention. For a retweet (RT), it just helps it be recognized as a RT. For an @mention, it’s necessary so that the person you mention will know about it. But for a DM, it is critical. Consider this tweet “DM@mytruelove Let’s meet tonight after 8 – my husband won’t be home.” Without that space, the whole world can read that tweet!
2. If you’re going to mention someone in a tweet – be sure to include the @ before their handle. That way they’ll know they’ve been mentioned.
3. Be very careful with DMs, sometimes Twitter hiccups and they can show up in your timeline. Check your timeline to be sure it isn’t public. Especially important if you tend to ignore item 1 above.
4. Be sure to check your mentions on Twitter. That way you’ll know when people you aren’t following are talking to you or retweeting you.
5. If your tweet starts with a twitter handle and you want to make sure EVERYONE notices it, Add “. “ before the twitter handle. Otherwise, only people that follow you AND that first Twitter handle will see the tweet in their timeline.
6. Many Twitter apps have built in URL shorteners, use them. People are much more likely to retweet something that isn’t too long because of the URL.
7. Stick to 140 characters. Sure you can tweet longer, but not everyone wants to open their browser to read the rest of your tweet.
8. When retweeting, please shorten the tweet to keep it under 140. If your twitter client doesn’t let you know you’re over 140 characters, get one that will. I see too many RTs with only half of a link at the end because it was cut off.
9. Try to spell people’s Twitter handles right. If you have problems, check your Twitter app – some help you by having a list of everyone you follow.
10. When replying to a tweet – use Reply. To some this may sound like a no-brainer. But I see a lot of people obviously replying to someone without using the function. It can be hard to discern the meaning of your reply if even the recipient can’t tell what you’re replying to.

Those are my Twitter observations. You’re free to disagree. Let me know your thoughts.

Is there something I missed? Leave a comment.