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1 reason you don’t want a New Friend

by Mike Mueller- builder of Custom Facebook Business (fan) Pages

in Blogging, Facebook, Facebook Pages, Social Media

A simple question.
As a small business owner, do you need more Friends or more Clients ?

Earlier this year when Facebook changed the way a “Fan” Page interacts with people I instantly became a Fan (full pun intended).

It’s no secret everyone and their Mother is logging in to Facebook. Not just pimply faced kids in dorm rooms, but the exact demographic that makes up your Client database. The problem is this; the natural tendency is to add all your contacts as Friends in Facebook. “Hey! Friend me up!”

There’s a thousand reasons every small business owner should have a Business Page (which should aptly be renamed a Business Page). I’ll just concentrate on one for now. Adding a contact or potential client generally gives them access to your wall, your links, and other important items you might want to share. That’s generally not a problem.

The problem is “those photos ”… You know, the ones your beer guzzling roomies in college just found and uploaded? Yes, you can manually remove them from your wall or fool around with the privacy settings. But…

to someone in business, a Fan Page does more than give you another profile to keep track of. It’s a manner of separating the Friends from Clients. Business from Personal. You can still and should, inject your personality into the stream but your Fans are not going to see Doogie’s pictures.

That alone should be enough reason to go out a build a Business Page on Facebook . The question is now…

How to inspire someone to become a “Fan”?

Simply change the links that you have that might normally lead to your Facebook Profile (resulting in a new Friend ) to your Facebook Business Page (resulting in a new Fan )

Would that really work?

Looking at the below real time chart from Facebook I would say,

VERY MUCH SO!

That Facebook Bottle Cap is much smaller and more concealed than my previous “Join Mike on Facebook” widget yet my traffic dramatically increased.

Currently I have 3 different Facebook Pages :

Mike Mueller: I started this Page as a way to better promote upcoming events I’ll be speaking at, classes I’ll be teaching, or really anything related to the business side of my life. This page is where I also do a little experimenting. Check this out… If you are new to the page you’ll be brought to my Video tab, Existing Fans will see the Wall. If you are a Fan of the page you’ll also see a “Coupon” for Mueller Maps discount, non fans will not.

Join the Mike Mueller Business Page

Mueller Maps: This is just to showcase and demonstrate my Google Map Mashup I call “Mueller Maps ”. If you are not familiar with the concept, it’s a great way to embed video directly onto a Google Map. Best of all, it’s easily updated by adding a row on a spreadsheet.

Join the Mueller Maps Page

AreWeConnected.com: I realized after starting the first two pages, I had not yet created a page for this website. The website itself needs it’s very own page. This is a place where everyone who comes by the site and signs in using Facebook Friend Connect will be directed. Think of it as a home on Facebook for AreWeConnected.com .

Join the AreWeConnected.com Page

That’s enough about me. Let’s talk about you!

These are my three examples of Facebook Business Pages. I’d like to hear and see about yours. Share your Facebook Business Page story, leave a link to it in your comments and let’s see if we can’t build up your fan base. Tell us what you have done with it. Tell us what you don’t understand (it can be very confusing). And if you have a really cool application – what did you do and how did you do it?

As an incentive for sharing, I’ll give away one free Mueller Map to one of the lucky people leaving a comment (even if you don’t have a Page).

Driving Traffic to your Facebook Business Page (activerain.com)
What is a Facebook Page? Should you have one? (activerain.com)

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