Despite setting up and running numerous Facebook Fan pages for various clients, I had always said that NikkiPilkington.com had no need for one.
In my eyes, in as much as we ‘have’ a brand, that brand is me – and I like to think the fact that I’m fairly open has helped people to learn more about me, to feel that they know me, and to trust me with their internet marketing and promotion.
If I’m having a bad day then in general people know about it – and by the same token if I’m having a fab day then I shout about that too.
My Facebook profile page is a mixture of interesting (to me at least!) links, funny clips, the odd quiz I found amusing, messages from and to friends and clients, and more.
And it has worked well for my business.
However, as is the way with Facebook, more and more old schoolfriends have connected to me, family members have ‘hooked up’ and people who have no interest or knowledge of the Internet Marketing world are now on my friends list. As I used my profile to promote my business and my clients quite a lot, the amount of ’Nikki, what the heck are you talking about?’ messages was getting to be more and more, and I spent more and more time explaining to friends that ‘this is what I do and why I do it’.
Not that I begrudge explaining my business and my life to people, but it started to feel like every day I had to justify a link I’d placed, a status update I’d made, a comment I’d posted.
So I gave up and gave in, and we now have a Facebook Fan Page. That’s where you’ll find links to clients, blog posts, trade and industry links and news I think is interesting to clients and contacts who are looking to promote themselves online. It’s new, and it’s not fleshed out as yet, but it’s getting there and it might be interesting to you to see the things I add as we go along.
You’re more than welcome to stay friends with me on Facebook too, but my main profile will now be a lot more personal, as I remove the feeds and items that have been bothering the ‘less commercial’ of my contacts, who I love dearly and really don’t want to lose contact with on Facebook.
So please, become a fan of the NikkiPilkington.com fan page, and help to spread the word – and of course, feel free to leave comments and links on the page itself!
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Tags: facebook, fan, fan page, promotion, Social Networking
I have recently started a business page – what is the difference between that and a fanpage?
They’re basically the same Wendy
Hi Nikki
Far from being an internet newbie I am struggling with setting up a facebook fan page as it seems to need to be linked to a personal profile, is that right? Like you I have had my own personal page for a while but now feel the need to split personal stuff and business stuff.
I want to have a page that is facebook.com/mybusinessname* but instead the page is a long formula of letters, symbols and numbers with my business name mixed in the middle. Various people have suggested that you need to have a certain number of fans to have a specific facebook url* for your business, do you know if that is correct?
Thanks Nikki
Jakki, the fan page isn’t ‘linked’ to your personal profile – although you will probably want to become a fan of your own page and ’suggest’ it to your friends if some of them are business contacts too. The unwiedly name can be gotten rid of by assigning a name to your page at http://www.facebook.com/usernames – but you do have to have a certain amount of fans to do this.
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Thanks Nikki
I think I may need some help with this as there is no doubt that the fan page I have created is linked to my personal profile e.g. when I tried to link blog posts to my fan page they turned up in my personal account.
Jakki
Nikki I have had a FaceBook fan page for a few months now. Although I do put content on there I have done little to generate fans…….until I read your blog article.