We help many businesses convert their Facebook profiles from “personal profiles” to “business pages.” It’s a common mistake for a business owner to set up the company page as a profile, but it’s a mistake that should always be corrected ASAP.
It’s not good to “friend” your customers for a number of reasons. When a business is facebook “friends” with their customers:
1. The business can usually see the customers’ full profiles. This includes posts, pictures, check-ins, etc.
2. Other “friends” of the business have access to the business’ complete friends list.
3. It allows the business to write on their customers’ facebook walls or spam them with private messages.
4. Vice Versa. Customers can spam you.
5. Users can’t “check-in” to a profile page.
6. You aren’t able to see a generated list of statistics about your fans and posts.
7. There’s a limit to the number of friends you can have. (There’s no limit to how many fans a page can have).
8. Customers have to wait for you to approve them as a friend.
9. You aren’t able to use multiple login names.
10. Facebook doesn’t allow you to promote your page on other websites with a “Like” button.
11. You’re in violation of Facebook’s terms, and you may lose the entire account.
That said, many of our clients who convert to a page feel restricted when they’re unable to send or receive private messages from their “fans.” “Friend” profiles can share private messages on Facebook.
Good news, though. Facebook has announced a new feature: Private Messages for Pages.
The feature is currently being tested in a small area so it’s not available quite yet, but it’s very exciting.
Private messages for pages will be great for one-on-one communication between brands and their customers. However, it might take a lot of extra time to respond to all the messages in the inbox, so a good strategy is needed to manage the feature.
Of course it’s a bit frightening to imagine what some customers might say in private…especially because the new system does not require the sender to “like” the page before sending a message to the brand.
Source: Marketing Pilgrim