Are my customers or prospects on Facebook?

Do I have good content to share?

Can my customers benefit from interaction with each other?

Do I want another place where my company can be found?

Do I want to easily keep my brand in front of people?

If you can answer “yes” to even some of those questions, then yes, you probably do need a Facebook fan page.  According to Facebook, profiles are for individual people and “pages are for organizations, businesses, celebrities, and bands to broadcast great information to fans in an official, public manner.”  If you have created a profile for your business rather than a page, you are violating Facebook’s terms of service and they can disable your business profile page at any time.  An easy way to tell the difference is profiles can request friends and pages can not. 

There are important benefits to fan pages:

  1. Facebook Fan PageFan pages are public, meaning anyone can find them.  “Anyone” also includes Google and other search engines.  Fan pages are indexed by the search engines so some level of search engine optimization (SEO) will result from your fan page.
  2. The Insights tool for fan pages provides detailed information about how your fans are interacting with your page, broken down by comments, Wall posts, and likes.  The Insights also show you how engaging your posts are, how your post quality compares to similarly-sized pages, where your fans are located, fan gender and age, and the language they speak. 
  3. There are tabs on your fan page for discussions.  You or your fans can start discussions to share information and keep people engaged.
  4. You can create ads for your fan page, targeted at very specific demographics.
  5. You can custom design the front door of your fan page.  Using Facebook’s coding language, you can design a new tab to serve as the landing page, instead of the default wall.

A Facebook fan page does not necessarily take the place of your existing Website.  Your Website is meant to communicate relevant information about you and your business.  Your fan page will be a place to build your community, interact with your fans, and allow fans to interact with each other.  Your customers and prospects will likely be looking for you on a Website and on Facebook, and they will expect to see different information in each place.  Don’t disappoint them!