Managing Facebook Identities for Better Exposure and Networking Part I

Welcome to Facebook Fridays, an ongoing feature for digital scrapbook designers to better understand social media marketing and tribe building. See the previous posts in this series HERE. Today's focus is on managing identities while on Facebook.

The ability to function as a Page Admin AND your own personal identity can be a little cumbersome to manage, although the interface on the site has improved significantly over the past year. Even so, I almost always see digital designers interacting as themselves (personal profile) on Facebook and not as much as their page (designer) identity. There are some places when you cannot post or like as a Page (in groups, for example) but in public places, you CAN post and like as your page and I recommend that you do that as much as possible.

Here is the reason why:

When other people who are visiting a page see your likes & comments, they will see your design name. Perhaps multiple times. This benefits you in two ways. 

First, simple brand recognition. Brand recognition is an absolutely crucial item in your business success. Why? It not only brings people to your designs the first time, but keeps them coming back. People give their repeat business to a brand they feel they know and trust. When you are actively participating in Facebook, you give others a sense that you are trustworthy and active part of this community. Getting your design name recognized is especially important when it is something other than your own name.

Second, clicks! When others see your design name, if they click on it to see who you are and what you do, they will land on your fan page. Then, if they like what they see on your stream, they can like your brand and interact with it. If you are posting with your personal profile, they will get a picture of your dog or your garden or whatever you've been publicly sharing. Your business activities on Facebook should be bringing people to your FAN PAGE, not your personal profile.

Once you have made this change, you will get a great side benefit in managing the pages you follow - they will be separate from your personal interests. That means when want to share something business related from a page you follow, you can share immediately without changing identities! When you follow the CUDigitals page and I post a fun graphic that would be a great share to your fans, you can do that right away with minimal effort. If you follow a photography or other related page, you can immediately share content to your business page. This is a much easier method of getting content onto your fan page than following a page as yourself, finding something you want to share and switching identities over to your page to share. These shared items create engagement and interest on your page as I wrote about last week.

Action steps:

1. Unlike/unfollow the store pages where you are active as your personal identity. This includes the stores where you sell and other industry fan pages that you follow (including CUDigitals!)

2. Switch to your PAGE identity and LIKE/FOLLOW the same page

3. Whenever you are interacting with the page, make sure you are posting with your page identity. 

Now that you are set up to like, comment and share as your page, make sure you are interacting with your store's page and spending a minute or two each day getting your name out there - it is worth your time!

One final note. It is against Facebook policy to use a personal page with your design name. You are supposed to use your real name and save your marketing activities for a separate fan page. If you are using a presonal Facebook profile for business, your run the risk of your profile being removed and losing all the fans/friends that have connected with you. There is an informative article about the differences between a Page and Profile here.

Your comments, questions and feedback are welcome below! 

top image credit: freedigitalphotos,net