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To Build a Facebook Page, You Need a Profile

July 30, 2010 By 30 Comments

“Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.”
- Mark Zuckerberg, Co-founder, CEO & President of Facebook (via Gigaom)

People often ask me why they can’t have a Facebook Page for their business without having a personal Profile first. I usually try to explain that Facebook has made this mandatory (with one exception, see below) to encourage people to be as transparent as possible. I think Mark Zuckerberg’s quote above expresses this sentiment even more accurately. Facebook (or at least their CEO) believes that everyone should “be themselves” on Facebook, and not hide behind a brand or logo. Facebook also probably wants as many people to be on Facebook as possible (for advertising revenue of course).

Facebook explains the difference between a Page and a Profile here.

“Profiles represent individuals and must be held under an individual name, while Pages allow an organization, business, celebrity, or band to maintain a professional presence on Facebook…In addition, Pages are managed by admins who have personal Facebook profiles. Pages are not separate Facebook accounts and do not have separate login information from your profile. They are merely different entities on our site, similar to how Groups and Events function. Once you have set up a Page within your profile, you may add other admins to help you manage this Page. People who choose to connect to your Page won’t be able to see that you are the Page admin or have any access to your personal account.”

You can see how Facebook is encouraging the fusion – NOT the separation – of Pages and Profiles. The creator of a Page has to use his/her personal account to build a page for a business or organization. And the promotional features of a Page are not nearly as “personal” as your Profile features. No messaging to fans is a rule that many marketers despise, as outlined here:

“All personal site features, such as friending and messaging, are also for personal use only and may not be used for professional promotion. If you add a user as a friend, for example, this person will be invited to be a friend of your profile and not your Page. Using personal site features for professional promotion, or creating unauthorized Pages, may result in your account being warned or disabled.”

But would you want it any other way? Millions of people use Facebook because they feel safe (relatively) in the space. Facebook wants to protect that feeling of privacy and choice. Allowing marketers to bombard their fans would surely drive users away. Besides, we have learned over time that “opt-in” social marketing is much more effective in the long run. Let the user choose to listen to your brand. The use of force and interruption is ineffective and despised in the social realm.

Business Accounts

There is a way around the Profile-before-Page rule. If you are creating a business Page on Facebook you can create a Business Account and avoid making a personal Profile for yourself. There are some restrictions to these accounts, which is why many of us break down and use our personal accounts for business:

“Business accounts are designed for individuals who only want to use the site to administer Pages and their ad campaigns. For this reason, business accounts do not have the same functionality as personal accounts. Business accounts have limited access to information on the site. An individual with a business account can view all the Pages and Social Ads that they have created, however they will not be able to view the profiles of users on the site or other content on the site that does not live on the Pages they administer. In addition, business accounts cannot be found in search and cannot send or receive friend requests.”

Another important restriction to note: You cannot add applications to your Page if you are using a business Profile in lieu of a personal Profile. From the Facebook Help Center:

You will not, however, be able to view the profile information of any other users on the site, or add any other applications to your account. Your account will not be visible in search and other users on the site will not be able to find you and add you as a friend.

That means no Static FBML application for you!

Learn more about how to set up a business account here. We do not recommend this strategy to our Clients, but it could be the right approach for your brand if you do not need any of the personal Profile features.

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  • http://www.adamspradling.com AdSprad

    Great post and it is good that Facebook filled the need for non friend request capped profiles for businesses.

    However Facebook lacks the capacity to help those who have created early marketing strategies as the platform first emerged years ago. The companies who jumped on early are now stuck due to Facebook’s current set up and policies.

    Facebook has gone through so many changes over the past three years. Three redesigns and always implementing new features or taking away features to distinguish pages, profiles ect… Many changes have been good improvements.

    An example of a bad situation would be company profiles unable to transfer custom URL tags still “for security reasons.” Pages have functionality, as opposed to being lesser than Groups like three years ago…good today, but again, it has been an annoying transition for those guiding group members to become fans.

    Business late to the game will benefit and this is good. I feel for those who adopted early.

  • DG

    How about an article on the difficulty Batman and Spiderman are having with Facebook crimefighting? There is a whole social history of anonymity since cave paintings, the Masque, Zorro, Mata Hari, the green revolution in Iran. People should be able to choose from an inner circle to an outer circle their level of comfort in the bit world. And if companies get so large they try to force something else on people, then they should be regulated. More then one identity should be ok in FB world. I need to keep my work facebook separate from my personal facebook. Per the work restrictions. I imagine most people create two accounts anyway and facebook just doesn’t enforce.

  • Sheryl

    What route do I need to go to create a page to send reminders to my seventh grade students? How do I get rid of a page (or maybe pages..) if I have already created the wrong thing….more than once? BTW, I am not a tech teacher. :)

    • Analisa

      It depends on what you mean by “reminders” because Pages have limited messaging capabilities. If you have multiple pages you want to delete, you go to “edit page” and at the top you will see 3 options: Back to Pages | View Page | Delete Page

      Click delete page!

      If you want to be able to message your students, you might want to use a personal Profile, so that you can send messages and create events and invite all of your friends. Pages are limited in that regard because Facebook wants to protect people from Brands spamming them, and Pages are intended for businesses primarily.

  • Ginny

    I work at a public relations agency where we manage multiple Facebook accounts for our clients, many of whom do not have a personal Facebook account or wish to not use their personal account to build their business page. Any suggestions for how to handle clients’ accounts?

    • Analisa

      If they are opposed to using their personal accounts, which is ideal, then they can simply create a new personal profile (preferably not a fake person) and add no personal content but use it to create business pages. Using a business account is not very effective, personal profiles are the only real way to go.

  • Patty House

    I created a personal page under patty house.
    then I created a business page under starburst doggie designs.
    I can create albums on the business page that show my dog clothing, but the album will NOT publish to the business page wall. Instead, it publishes only to my personal page.
    Shouldn’t albums made on the business page, publish to the business page?
    I have my photo settings set for the wall, but has not solved the problem.

    Help!!!! Patty House

  • http://www.balancecarbon.com Rehnu Ramadas

    Hi,
    We would like to get our business on the facebook excitement and tried to create a business page but was told that we were not eligible. So i have been reading up and understand that you need a personal profile to be able to create a business page. Who in the business would be the most ideal person to have that set up? I am the office manager and I do have my own personal facebook and so does Matt our Director. Any advise?

    • http://www.hyperarts.com timware

      The best person would be someone trusted at the company who will likely be there for some time. Once the brand page is set up, other people can be added as administrators and, if the original person who set it up leaves, they could be removed as an admin.

  • http://thespotgourmet Elizabeth Flynn

    Hi Analisa,

    I have a similar situation to question #4 re: personal accounts. I just published a Facebook fan page for a catering company using a fictitious name, the owner’s birthday and email address. But I added no personal information. The owner didn’t want the fan page attached to her personal profile. In the Facebook business help section it states…

    “Please be aware that managing multiple accounts is a serious violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use. If we determine that an individual has more than one account, we reserve the right to terminate all of their accounts. ”

    Did I make a multiple account? I don’t want to violate their Terms of Use.

    Thank you,
    Elizabeth

    • Analisa

      Elizabeth, if you already have a personal Facebook account and you created a second “fake” account for your Page admin, then yes, you are technically against FB’s TOS.
      My advice is to use an existing account to create a Fan Page, there will be NO connection whatsoever between the Profile on that account and the Page. I admin many many Pages and there is no way for anyone to see me (Analisa) connected to the Page (HyperArts, for example). When I post to the Page, I appear as the Page, not myself.

      The business owner would be the ideal person to admin the Page, but since it sounds like you have been managing the Page as well, you can both be admins. It actually does not matter any more who creates the Page, since you can remove the creator from the Admin panel at any time.

      -Analisa

      • http://thespotgourmet Elizabeth Flynn

        Thank you for reviewing my question. I’ll get started on that new page now!

  • Mark

    I want to advertise my Facebook page on my business cards ie (www.facebook.com/mybusiness) — but this links to my personal page. I want it to link to my business page. How do I ensure that when I send people to the above example link that it goes to the page I’ve created to promote my business.

    I really could use some help on this one.

    • Analisa

      Mark, you need to create a custom URL for your Fan Page, not just your profile. Do you have more than 25 fans on your Page? Then go to http://facebook.com/username and create a different URL for your Page.

  • Mark

    Analisa, I now have 25 fans. The problem is when I first started the page I didn’t know all the rules and set the username, that I had intended for the Fan page, to the account page. From what I read it seems though even if I change the username to a different one — I won’t be able to pick up that same name for the Fan page. Can you please help?

    • Analisa

      Yes, it could be that you have a different username and URL than your actual Page name, if the option to change your Page name is not available. I believe that Facebook made it an option for certain pages with small numbers of Fans.

      This article has more info on that: http://www.allfacebook.com/change-facebook-page-name-soon-2010-10

      Otherwise I cannot offer more of a solution, unless you want to delete your page and start over.

  • Mark

    Analisa,

    I realize this is irregular but can we please speak offline and maybe over the phone about this subject. I’m really confused. In don’t believe your recommendation solves the problem I’m faced with. I’m trying to build a business marketing campaign, but at ever turn seemed to be undermined by the very source I’m turning to do just that. You can email me at mark@greenslopebuilding.com.

    Mark

  • http://www.facebook.com/snippetme Elijah Nitcher

    Good day! This is my first comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and say I really enjoy reading your blog posts. Can you suggest any other blogs/websites/forums that cover the same subjects? Thank you!

    • Analisa

      Thanks for reading! We recommend Social Media Examiner and Mari Smith as other great Facebook and Social Media Marketing experts.

  • http://www.myshoppinggenie.com/pstd Lisa Ann Landry

    Hi I found this post to be very informative and what to know if it remains true today. I knew you had to have a personal profile to create a business page. I’ve had many debates with people about making a business page with a a personal profile since I didn’t realize it could be done. Thank you for outlining the limitations to this option and letting us know you don’t recommend it.

    Lisa Ann Landry – Corporate Trainer
    I’m an exuberant force of light… Come light up your life
    http://www.imagedevelopmentgroup.com/speakers.htm

  • Anonymous

    Don’t know if you’re still answering posts, but could you tell me what happens to my biz page if I disable my personal profile? My personal profile is the admin for the page, but I would like to disable the personal profile temporarily for personal reasons, while still maintaining my biz page.  Is this possible? I can’t find info on the FB help pages anywhere.

  • Anonymous

    Don’t know if you’re still answering posts, but could you tell me what happens to my biz page if I disable my personal profile? My personal profile is the admin for the page, but I would like to disable the personal profile temporarily for personal reasons, while still maintaining my biz page.  Is this possible? I can’t find info on the FB help pages anywhere.

    • Anonymous

      If I were you, I would add someone else as an admin just in case. Create a new profile and make that profile an admin, then you could delete your personal account and your Page would not be lost. I am guessing that if you are the only admin, that when you try to delete your account, Facebook will pop up a message that warns you that deleting your account means losing access to your Page. -Analisa

    • Anonymous

      If I were you, I would add someone else as an admin just in case. Create a new profile and make that profile an admin, then you could delete your personal account and your Page would not be lost. I am guessing that if you are the only admin, that when you try to delete your account, Facebook will pop up a message that warns you that deleting your account means losing access to your Page. -Analisa

    • Anonymous

      If I were you, I would add someone else as an admin just in case. Create a new profile and make that profile an admin, then you could delete your personal account and your Page would not be lost. I am guessing that if you are the only admin, that when you try to delete your account, Facebook will pop up a message that warns you that deleting your account means losing access to your Page. -Analisa

    • Anonymous

      If I were you, I would add someone else as an admin just in case. Create a new profile and make that profile an admin, then you could delete your personal account and your Page would not be lost. I am guessing that if you are the only admin, that when you try to delete your account, Facebook will pop up a message that warns you that deleting your account means losing access to your Page. -Analisa

  • Analisa

    Your privacy settings for your personal profile should not effect your Page at all!

  • Analisa

    Your profiles can be completely private – practically non-existant – and your Page will not be effected at all.

  • Analisa

    It is recommended to just use your personal profile to manage your Pages, there is no link between them that would invade your privacy. For instance, try finding a way to look at my personal profile via the HyperArts Page…not easy to do.