This month I talk to Shaun Nilsson of CityBlast about whether you should set up a Facebook personal profile or business page for your real estate or mortgage business. There are some definite advantages and disadvantages depending on what you choose.
A personal profile is exactly that – personal – and it gives the people in your sphere a real feeling of connecting with you as a person rather than as a “sales”person. Profiles are intuitive to manage and save time by putting everything about you in one place. You can also control who you connect with, which can be an important consideration when you’re in the early stages of developing business relationships. But personal pages make it difficult to separate the public and private sides of your life, meaning you have to either sensor yourself or spend more time segregating your contacts. And if you have an assistant that is managing your social networks for you, you probably don’t want to give them access to your personal profile.
Business pages, on the other hand, come with their own pluses and minuses. Contacts can connect with you whenever they want without waiting for your permission and they can easily recommend you to their friends by liking your page. Facebook even automatically recommends your page to friends of your fans. Pages come with lots of data and analysis tools that let you see how many people are interacting with your page and seeing your posts, and when it comes to advertising yourself through Facebook pages are really your best option. It’s also very easy to keep your business page separate from your private personal profile, and if an assistant manages this stuff for you then you can easily set their permission levels for your page. On the downside, pages can seem impersonal unless they are set up and managed correctly and it’s tempting to fall into the “just advertise my listings” approach when it comes to sharing content.
But ultimately, what you choose depends on your philosophical approach to your relationship building and how you’re using social networking to build your business. Watch this video to find out more:
As always, I wish you great success.
Chris Leader
President & Master Trainer
