Page vs. profile

Stephanie Stevens
March 15, 2018

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If you’re an up-and-coming entrepreneur, getting ready to start your own business and bring something new to the game, or if you are already established and ready to spice up your business’ brand and awareness, social media is likely at the front of your mind. Facebook is a good first step in creating your business’ social media network, but if you are unfamiliar with the website you may be wondering: what’s the difference between a profile and a page? It’s pretty simple; let’s walk through it.

A Facebook profile is an individual’s profile on Facebook where one can add friends, share status updates about themselves and their ongoings, and upload all sorts of media such as pictures, videos, links, and more. A profile is built up through personal information such as date of birth, schools attended, employment history, family members, where one lives, along with more trivial things such as favorite TV shows, movies, music artists, and books. Users are only allowed to have one Facebook profile.

On the flip side, there are Facebook pages. A page is designed for businesses to share content with followers and, similar to a profile, there is an “About” section where the manager can write in all the necessary info about the business such as a brief description, address, phone numbers, emails, etc.

Pages allow for all different varieties of interactions one doesn’t have with a simple profile: users can leave reviews of the business/product to which the administrator of the page can reply back and create a dialogue with their clientele; you can create events for your business in which people can RSVP and keep up to date with timings, locations, and other guests’ discussions; there are job boards, promotions, access to Facebook advertisements, and–maybe the most important advantage–is access to Facebook Page Insights.

Facebook Page Insights allow you to keep up to date and aware of your page’s analytics: what posts audiences are interacting with, what they aren’t interacting with, how many people have your posts reached, what actions are being taken on the page, the demographics of your audience, and more.

While you do need a Facebook profile in order to create and manage a Facebook page, a page is the definitive form of Facebook presence for any business, large or small. Plus, with Facebook’s user friendly interface, it’ll take no time before you are a master of the Facebook world.