If you’re wondering what’s going on with Facebook Business Pages (and how they’re different from personal pages), we have a quick and dirty glossary to get you started.

Profile

When you sign up for Facebook, you get a profile.  Profiles are for people and, by Facebook’s terms and conditions, pages (see below) are for organizations, businesses, communities and more.

Page

Facebook pages are one of the best tools out there for promoting your small business. Create a Facebook page by scrolling down the left-hand side when you first log into Facebook. Move your cursor over the word “PAGES” and the word “MORE” will show up on the right.  Click “MORE”.  Near the top right-hand side of your screen, you should see a button that says “+ Create a Page”. Click it and you’re on your way!  You’ll want to spend some time fixing it up with photos and your business info.

Timeline

Every Facebook page has a timeline where you post your business news and where your fans can comment.  You can view your posts and fan comments as they appear chronologically, as well as deleting or hiding any post as needed. Fans can also post content to your timeline. Check out the Edit Page link to change the settings that allow fans to post on yourtimeline.

Fans also have a timeline, but as a business you can’t post on them.  Only profiles can write on the timelines for other profiles.  When you have a business page, one great way to interact on Facebook is to post on other business’ timelines.

Like

When a person hits the “like” button on your business page, they become a member of your business’s Facebook community (a “fan”).   Once someone becomes your fan, they will start receiving content from your posts in their newsfeed.

Fan

“Fan” is the commonly used term referring to a person who has “liked” your business page.  As a Facebook page owner, you can see how many fans you have on the left-side panel above the words “like this”.

Newsfeed

Your newsfeed is where all of the posts published is gathered into one big stream of content for them to browse through.

Group

There is sometimes confusion among Facebook users about the difference between Facebook Groups and Facebook Business Pages.  For a business owner, the first thing to know about groups is that they aren’t the best tools for your business.  Groups are communities of users that gather to discuss a certain topic. You’ll see a button for “GROUPS” in the left-side menu above “PAGES.”  The problem is that groups aren’t for connecting with your client base or making sales.  Facebook actively discourages using groups for such purposes.  So stick to pages for your biz and you’re golden.

Was this useful?  Have any questions about Facebook Business Pages?

Leave a comment and we’ll get back to you.  Or give us a holler and we’ll hook you up with a One-on-One Social Media Consultation.