What is a Facebook Business Page?

A Facebook business page is like a regular Facebook profile, but for businesses. Facebook pages can also be created by non-profits and other organizations, brands, products, celebrities, and other entities. Businesses who want to create a presence on Facebook are required create a page, and not a personal profile.

Who Can Create a Facebook Business Page?

Anyone create a Facebook page. If you want to create a page for your business, go to facebook.com/pages and click the "Create Page" button in the upper right corner of the screen. Facebook walks you through the process.

Why Create a Facebook Business Page?

Some of the benefits of creating a Facebook page are:

It's free!

It's advertising and marketing!

It's the new thing and everyone is doing it! Seriously, every serious business should have a Facebook page.

It lets you publicly communicate directly with individual customers, clients, fans, journalists and other entities.

It lets said entities publicly communicate directly with you.

It's safe. No one can privately contact a Facebook page administrator via a page, and administrators cannot contact their page's fans via the page. Facebook page administrators don't even need to reveal their identities, but they can if they wish to.

It's flexible and fluid. Anyone can "like" (click the "Like" button) a Facebook page, which creates a connection between the person and the page. Anyone can "un-like" a page too, just as easily. This is called "opt-in marketing" by marketing professionals, a job title which I have been known to hold on many occasions.

It's better than email spam by a long shot. Opt-in marketing puts the power in the hands of consumers, which in turn makes them happier consumers.

What are the Drawbacks of Facebook Business Pages?

Some of the drawbacks are:

Administrators and fans can't communicate with each other privately via Facebook business pages. Only personal profiles can communicate with other personal profiles.

Facebook business pages don't have the privacy settings personal profiles have. For example, Facebook administrators can't post updates to just a highly customized set of fans, while Facebook profiles can post updates to any combination of their friends.

It's hard to get Facebook page fans. Since Facebook pages are less personal than Facebook profiles, people tend to interact less with pages than they do with other regular profiles.

"Should I Create a Facebook Business Page?"

The answer to that question depends on two other questions.

Do you already have a personal Facebook profile? If not, hold off on creating a Facebook page. Create a personal profile instead by visiting facebook.com and signing up. Learn what Facebook is like. Experiment as a regular profile user. "Like" some other pages to get a feel for what it's like to be a page fan. That way, you'll be able to empathize with your fans when you create a Facebook page down the line.

Do you have something to promote? If so, you should probably create a Facebook page. However, if you only promote, say, a mystery book you wrote (as my dad did), and you only do it some of the time, then consider just promoting it within your personal Facebook profile. That way you won't have two separate Facebook presences to manage. A Facebook business page is at its most effective when you spend quality time updating it, promoting it, and responding to fans.

But try it out anyway! You can always delete your Facebook page if you decide you don't want it on the Internet anymore.

Closing Comments

This is just a very, very basic introduction to Facebook pages. In keeping with this blog's theme of catering to beginners, I left out plenty of details. But this should give you a solid, general idea as to what a Facebook page is. You can now impress your friends and family with your vast technical knowledge.

As always, please feel free to ask me anything you want to know about Facebook. Oh, and check out my fan page for my side project, The Devil's Dictionary, Volume Two. (Warning: Only read if you like smirking at this crazy world.)