Here’s a strong message from Facebook.
OK, Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim asks a very pertinent question. Is Facebook going to kill your business by not allowing you to use your personal profile for commercial use? If you update your personal profile to say that you are launching a new product line for your small business, will Facebook block that communication? Or delete your account?
These are important questions to ponder and if you are a heavy Facebook user then you’d definitely want to pay attention to this. If you are using Facebook primarily for your business then you really want to pay attention to this as well. Have a lot of followers? Will you lose them? Should you migrate them to another social network? All pertinent questions.
I like Andy’s final summary:
I’ve cautioned before that you should never invest so heavily in any social media platform that it would hurt your business, should things change.
I think he’s making a good point. Social networks are fun and good for business, but if you rely on one website too much for networking and the site changes its policies, you could be in for a world of hurt. Perhaps this is a good case for having more than one social network be your bread and butter.
Hopefully, no business owner/marketer is relying on a social media program to build their enterprise.
Funnel people to your Web site with a sprinkling of information here and there – fine. Heavy expectations from one source – not fine.
This was also true for anyone who relied on fax broadcasting to increase revenue. When it was prohibited, you had to start all over again building a marketing plan.
If any of my social media accounts suddenly closed, I’d feel no pain whatsoever because my marketing train moves down the track through channels that reach my customers and generate revenue.
Caroline, I’m hoping that the business owners who read your post review their strategy to make sure all their eggs aren’t in one social media basket.
I think you are remiss in not mentioning that there is the option of a fan page. This is the solution for having a personal page and a business page, separating the two kinds of communication. Also, a business should have it’s own website and the Facebook brand/business page should only be in addition to the business web presence.