Facebook has
proposed it will soon ban users from “using their personal profiles for their
own commercial gain,” while selling status updates to advertisers as explicitly
being singled out as a violation, according to an article on Techrunch.
It’s important to note that there is a
distinction between a “personal profile” and a “fan page.” Supposedly Facebook
is trying to prohibit sponsored updates only on your personal profile where you
maintain “friends.” But you can do as you please on a fan page.
For those of you who’ve built a large
following on your personal profile and often promote products or services, you
stand to lose out on leveraging the influence you have on this group if you
don’t transfer these people to a fan page.
Here are the actions I suggest you take
in the next few days:
1) Keep your profile page alive and communicate on it for personal reasons.
2) Create a fan page for your brand. It has the same attributes as your profile
page—fans can comment on your updates, post to the wall, and receive your
updates in their news feeds—but has some advantages. First, you can have
unlimited fans as opposed to a limit of only 5,000 friends on your profile.
Second, fans don’t need pre-approval by you. Finally, you can advertise your
fan page across Facebook, whereas profile pages cannot be promoted. Advertising
on Facebook is easy and effective.
3)
send a message to your friends to show them your new fan page and urge them to
become “fans.” This way you’ll maintain those relationships and have
substantial eyeballs that advertisers and sponsors are seeking.
To inspire you, check out these top fan pages on Facebook.
If Facebook’s proposal doesn’t get the
green light, then the worst case scenario is that you’ll have two places in
which to promote your sponsored messages.
(Image source: gatorboosters.org)
