Are you a small business owner who is wondering how to start using social media for your business? Or does your business have customers in the offline world and you are now wondering if you should invest in creating an online presence for your company? If you have answered yes to any of the questions, you have come to the right place.
This article will answer 2 important questions:
- How is a Facebook business page different from a personal profile?
- Why does your business needs a Facebook page?
A Facebook business page is different from a personal page
Personal profile
As the name suggests, a personal profile is for a person. You can connect to your friends and family using your personal profile. You can even share important news, updates and photographs. You can get news and updates from organizations and other pages that interest you on your personal profile.
Business page
A Facebook business page is free to set up. It is your business' online presence on Facebook. Every business page on Facebook has to be linked to a personal profile. 
Facebook offers online tools for business pages:
- You can share text, photographs and videos showcasing your business on this page to connect to your customers. Business pages have a free feature called insights, that can help you understand your customers.
- You can make appointments, hire new employees and sell your products direly to your customers through the page.
- You can use your Facebook page to set up paid campaigns or advertisements regarding your business. .
In short, business pages have certain features like insights that personal profiles don't. You can also use business profiles to create paid advertising campaigns, which cannot be done through personal profiles.
Why does your business need a Facebook page?
Way to connect to the customers
All business, big or small, need customers to survive. Facebook is an efficient way to reach customers. With almost 2.2 billion active users (As of 2020), Facebook has the highest number of subscribers compared to all social media channels. The chances that many of the people active on Facebook are interested in a service like yours is very high.
Facebook is good for traffic
You can use Facebook to send traffic to your website. A Facebook business page helps solidify your online image and is good for SEO.
Let me explain this with an example. My business has a Facebook page. I get visitors to my website via the Facebook page.
Below is a screenshot of the online traffic to my website, taken from my Google Analytics page.
The graph shows the different channels through which visitors come to my website. A little more than a fourth of the traffic to my website comes from social media. That means many of the people who find my business page, choose to visit my website. And more traffic to your website, means more exposure which at the end of the day, is good for business.
To remain in the competition
Chances are that other businesses like yours have a Facebook business page, so why shouldn't you have one? You need one just to remain in competition.
Let me elaborate this with an example. Let us say you sell customized gift items. Your closest competitor in town is ABC customized gifts. I am a local customer looking for personalized gift items. I have a family reunion coming up and want to special order 50 customized shirts for my extended family and close friends, to commemorate this reunion. I start looking through Facebook for businesses in town that can fulfill my order. ABC customized gifts has a Facebook Business page that they regularly update, they have a 5-star rating and their customers speak highly of them. I decide to contact them about fulfilling my order and send them a message. The owner Janet, gets notifications from her Facebook business page. She sees my message and gets back to me within 1 hour. While your business does not have a Facebook business page. Period.
Who do you think I will choose to do business with?
Facebook recommends that you should post at least once a week. This shows that you are committed to your business, your Facebook presence and your customers.
To end this article, we can summarize that all businesses, no matter their size, need a Facebook business page. To make the most of their digital presence on Facebook, businesses need to post on their page regularly, create interesting content and provide efficient customer service by promptly answering concerns or questions from potential customers. Active business pages not only help businesses to remain competitive, they also offer them a chance to display their best content (visual/text and videos) in front of their customers everyday. And best of all, creating a Facebook business page is FREE. So, why not harness the power of Facebook to further your long term business goals?