Whenever I go out and monitor some brands, products or personalities that go into Facebook, they make the noob error of making a profile (or sometimes a Group)  instead of a Fan Page

It saddens me to notice this. This prompted me to share my own notes on the topic.

First, let’s define what your goals are for your Social Media (read: Facebook) marketing campaign.

You will need a Page if

• You want the community to grow on its own (no need to approve new friends/fans)
• You want to promote your Brand, Product or Service to as MANY people as possible
• If you are planning to go into advertising to grow the fanbase even more
• You want your brand or product to grow virally

If you are promoting yourself as a brand (or a personality… or up and coming), a page is still better than a profile. Of course, you can have your own private profile as well. But a Page is better for the following reasons

• You DO NOT NEED to approve all fans or friends that want you or your brand or product. Profiles or Groups have this limitation.
• They can post comments to your wall and share similar links or info. This will be good for the community since ultimately, they’ll be hooked
• The fanpage is designed to be automatically promoted via a Facebook Ad. Profiles or Groups are not.
• You can share the page to your friends and grow the network virally
• Contests and promos are easier to do on pages than on profiles.
• You do not need to log out of YOUR OWN profile to MANAGE the fanpage. As Admin, you can do that even while using your own profile.
• You can have additional Admins to help you with the marketing.
• There is a Free Report called “Insights” by Facebook that you can get. You’ll see trends, demographics of your fans. You can’t see this in profiles or groups.

Yet, I’m not saying that profiles or groups made in Facebook will not work for Social Media Marketing. Maybe if you’r opting for a really, niche product or market, then this might do the job for you.

But if you weigh all the “pros” that I outlined above, I’m sure you’ll agree that Pages are the way to go.

Hope this helps!

Visit my own Facebook Page to see how I’ve grown my own fan base from zero to close to 6,000 fans with almost no spending.