Home / Marketing & Social Media / HOW TO: Separate Personal and Business with Facebook Pages

HOW TO: Separate Personal and Business with Facebook Pages

Get ready to take your business to the next level with this comprehensive guide on how to separate your personal account from your professional Facebook page. I’ll show you the best strategies and tools to keep your personal life and business separate on the social media platform, so you can focus on growing your brand and reaching your goals.

Facebook serves two audiences – individuals and businesses. In real life, individuals work at businesses. They are attached, if you will, to businesses. In the same way, Facebook works the same. Your individual Facebook profile must be attached to a Business page. But you don’t want to be associated with the public page. Facebook needs a real body with a business, but I’ll show you ways you can keep your private life away from your public business page and make costly mistakes like posting personal message to your public Facebook page.

In this article you’ll learn:

  • Why Facebook needs a personal profile for business
  • How you can separate your business and personal Facebook life within the limits of the Facebook system
  • What makes a Facebook Business Page unique and it’s special abilities
  • Why the Meta Business manager makes some tasks easier and allows businesses to scale
  • Why you may not need a public Facebook Business Page for personal brands and may just use the Facebook Follow button instead
  • Some tools and resources to easily find and manage your accounts, even if you think you “lost” them

To be clear, here is an example of the difference between a Personal Facebook Profile and Facebook Business Page:

Can I have a business page without a personal profile? Pretty please?

For sure the answer in mid-2022 is no. HOWEVER, in July 2022 Facebook announced they are testing a way for users to have up to four profiles tied to one account – one for business / work, one for friends, one for groups, etc. The extra profiles won’t need real identities. This is great for Facebook Groups especially since Reddit is so popular based on the anonymity that the user account gives you. Personally, I love Reddit and this should be a huge boost for FB Groups and will be especially useful for business owners and marketing managers. Bookmark this post for updates and subscribe to my blog.

Assuming you already set up a personal profile and business page, you might be wondering:

Can I separate my business page from my personal account on Facebook?

Facebook automatically separates your personal profile identity from public Facebook pages, but there are some gotchas. You want to be sure you are posting as the business and not confusing the status update text box with your personal status update box and vice-versa. Facebook has tools to help you do this.

Facebook says:

Business Accounts in Meta Business Suite
Meta Business Accounts make it easier to manage your Pages, Instagram accounts and the people who work on them.
Grow your business with advanced tools and insights
Securely collaborate with partners and manage their access
Separate your work and life for privacy and focus

Creating the Meta Business Account at businesss.facebook.com can enable the special admin area that will enable to visually distinguish your personal profile area from the business area.

Here’s an example of the Facebook Meta Business Suite area:

You’ll notice an organizational structure:
An LLC business with Facebook properties (pages, instagram accounts, etc.) rolled up under it. This give flexibility when working with vendors and additional people.

Here’s a tip: Facebook needs a real person to manage a business page. That person DOES NOT need to be you. You can have a social media agency or friend post to the page while you maintain control of the Facebook business assets like the Ad Account. The Meta Business Suite can enable full management of people associated with the business.

I have lots of business pages and personal accounts but I don’t know how to access them or where they are. What can I do?

As a consultant that specializes in Facebook, I can tell you I hear this question a lot. Over the years I have clients that often set up personal accounts and business pages and lose track of them and can’t find them. Also what I will demonstrate is also helpful for locating business page assets.

Here’s what you can do:

Find your current personal profile information:

Visit this page to see your current personal profile:

https://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=account

You will see your Facebook Username. This is important to differentiate between your personal and business assets because your personal username identifies you personally on the Facebook platform. You will also see the email address associated with your personal profile.

If you use your name as also a business name, like I do or some real estate agents, your Facebook name would probably be the same, but they can’t be. Usernames on Facebook are unique. What I do is I use a nickname for my personal Facebook Profile – Kennymorico. I use KenMorico for my business page.

To view all the page you manage with your currently logged-in personal profile, visit this page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/?category=your_pages

Now you can see all the pages you have access to. Once you see the page you are interested in, click it. You will see the main page. Note the @username at the top left. That is the page username. You can also see the username in the URL of the current page in your Web browser.

Once you know the username of the business page, you can now assign other people to manage the page for you or keep yourself as admin or just see the current admin status by visiting this URL, filling in your business username:

https://www.facebook.com/YOUR-BUSINESS-PAGE-USERNAME/settings/?tab=admin_roles

Facebook Business Pages Need an Authentic Person

You might be thinking, why don’t I just create a separate personal profile with another email address and phone number? You can, but you will violate Facebook terms.

According to Facebook,

Facebook is a community where people use their authentic identities. …
If you want to represent your business, organization, brand or product on Facebook, you can use your personal account to create and manage a Page. Keep in mind that a personal profile is for non-commercial use and represents an individual person.

Facebook doesn’t really have “customer service.” If your page and profile violate terms you risk losing everything you have created and NEVER getting your assets back. Too risky for me and probably you too.

To be cautious, you can download all the data for your personal profile to your local computer and you can also download all the data for your public Facebook Page.

In this video I outline how to use the Meta Business Suite App to easily separate your personal profile from your Business account. Get it on iOS for iPhones. | Get it on Google Play Store for Android Phones.

Think Facebook is just for friends? I did too until Facebook  rolled out a massive structural change to Facebook Pages. Now businesses that setup “Pages” have more options to use Facebook like a regular user. How does this benefit a small business or professional person like a blogger?

Facebook Page and the Facebook Profile

With a few simple steps I’m going to outline how it’s easy to separate Facebook “friends” into two distinct groups – your personal friends with your regular Facebook profile, and business fans and people you would like your page to be a fan of. Now, Facebook pages have the ability to like other pages. This comes in handy in four ways.

  • You can get other pages to notice your page when you like them.
  • You can keep updated on the news feed of other pages – and not see the feed in your personal account.
  • By liking other pages you are now in the group of people with similar interests.
  • You can comment on other pages as a page and get people to view your profile with your business pitch or any content you want.

I’ve heard of people using Facebook to network before with their personal profile. To me, it just doesn’t make sense. I think people live in two worlds – a business world and a personal world. In my case, my name is my brand. Since my business / professional name is the same as my real name, it causes an obvious problem on Facebook. I used to think that there were better tools to use for networking like Twitter and LinkedIn. But these new Facebook Page capabilities make networking on Facebook easy. Plus, Facebook opens your personal brand / business to nearly a billion people.

NEW! 1-on-1 Sessions

I offer affordable 1-on-1 sessions tailored just for your needs. Facebook has constantly changed the user interface and methods to separate your business and personal matters. Get a review of your social account and solve your issues now.
HELP! I need a 1-on-1

You don’t want your messages exposed to people who are not interested in receiving them. That’s why it’s important to have a separate Facebook Page. We all know people who send business-related messages on their personal accounts. Nobody likes that! If you don’t have a Facebook Page, creating one is easy.

Facebook now has a Follow Button to enable anyone to subscribe to your public updates. This may make sense for a personal brand, as long as your friends don’t mind seeing your topic-specific posts. You can create filters in Facebook for your posts, but this is kind of a hassle. Separate pages can make more sense. In all, it’s not easy to separate business and personal in Facebook without some work.

The Follow button language is inline with Twitter, so users are familiar with its functionality.

FaceBook Page Tab  and the IFrame

facebook-coca-cola-page

You’ll notice a big design difference with regular Facebook user profile and business Facebook Pages because of what’s called the tab feature of the Facebook Page. Facebook pages can have a design (if the owner chooses) that look like mini Web pages. They are even easier to create now that Facebook has migrated to what’s called the iFrame to display tab content.

facebook-iframe

iFrames are literally Web pages within Web pages, so regular Web designers can easily create pages and host them on another server outside of the Facebook domain. When users visit your page for the first time, your welcome tab can appear with your logo, fonts, videos, and any other marketing material. The sizes are small though, only 520 pixels or roughly 5 inches wide on a standard computer monitor. Facebook Pages don’t automatically come setup with the iFrame component,and there are limitations for pages with small audiences. According to Facebook:

Major brands, celebrities, and organizations use Facebook Pages as their social home on the web. Besides standard tabs like “About”, “Events” or “Photos” you can add custom Page tabs via the Facebook platform. These custom Page tabs load content from your webserver using an iframe. Page tabs will only be displayed in the web UI. Mobile custom tabs are not supported at this time.
Limitations
Only Pages with 2000 or more likes can create custom Page tabs.

Simple pages aren’t all that you can do. Having developed Facebook Applications professionally, I can tell you there is so much you can customize to make your page fun and viral. Pages give you access to limitless creative possibilities – you just need a skilled programmer familiar with the Facebook platform. Wanna add a game to your page? No problem! Want to use their friends list or gain access to useful personal data to build your database? Yep, you can do that too.

Small Businesses Spending More on Facebook Marketing

Did you know small businesses are stepping up spending on Facebook marketing this year? According to an Inc Magazine survey, businesses will spend more on Facebook than Twitter. Interesting. Twitter, blogs, and LinkedIn made the other top spots. What does this tell me? 1 billion Facebook users can’t be ignored. If you’re a small business or professional you need to respect the size of Facebook and its growing importance in the business community. With the increased features for separating personal accounts and business accounts, you can be sure Facebook has more in store for businesses. The place check-ins are already evidence of that. Think you can’t know what’s happening next? Developers usually know through a page Facebook has called Pages API. It helps them prepare their code for services changes and major upcoming shifts. You may want to check it out as you get deeper into Facebook marketing since Facebook changes can derail your marketing if they remove features.

Can I Convert My Personal Facebook Profile to a Facebook Business Page?
How Do I Convert My Personal Facebook Profile to a Facebook Business Page?

Yes, you can, but this isn’t a great option. If you want to convert a personal profile to a business page it’s probably because it wasn’t setup properly. Business pages are for businesses. Before Facebook Pages, many business setup personal profiles for their businesses because that was the only option available to them. Now, you can convert the personal profile to a business page, but would your personal friends appreciate it? Do you want to lose your personal friends? I suggest creating a new, separate Facebook Page and let your friends know about it by posts in your personal feed and through page invitations.
Here is the official word from Facebook:

“When you convert your personal account to a Facebook Page, a business account will be created to manage your Page. We’ll transfer your current profile picture and add all your friends and followers as people who like your Page. Your account’s username will become the username for your Page, and the name associated with your personal account will become your Page’s name. If you want your Page to have a different name, consider creating a new one.
No other content will be carried over to your new Page, so be sure to save any important content before beginning the conversion”

Read more on Facebook.com

What Benefits / Features do Facebook Pages Have Versus Facebook Profiles?

Facebook business pages are more capable than personal profiles. Useful Page features:

  • Tabs
  • Advertising
  • Like boxes
  • Multiple administrators
  • Categories – useful for the new Graph Search Facebook introduced
  • Instant followers – no one needs to accept the fan / follower request
  • Facebook Insights (analytics) – get useful information about your audience and posts. Personal profiles have NO analytics.
  • Peace of mind – know that with a page everything you post will be public – no need to worry about privacy or audience like with a personal profile

Like me, many people have a personal brand. I created a Facebook business page that included my real name. So, for example “Ken Morico.” I keep my personal account private using privacy settings so my business page doesn’t compete with my personal profile. It helps me separate my family and my professional contacts on Facebook and helps me target my status updates. Review your personal account privacy settings here: https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=privacy

Here’s what Facebook analytics look like:

fb-insights

I Want To Convert My Facebook Profile To A Facebook Page. What Do I  Lose / Need To Watch Out For?

Some people report that you lose the ability to comment in Facebook Groups once you convert your Facebook Profile to a Facebook Page. If you want to participate in groups, you can instead comment as your page on the walls of other pages and get conversations going that way. Also, Reddit and LinkedIn have strong communities and groups, so you may want to check out those as well.

When you convert your personal profile your friends will become your fans/followers. Do they want to? My guess is no. Be careful.

I am a Consultant / Advertising Agency, How Can I Manage Many Facebook Business Accounts?

When I worked for an agency, I setup a new, dummy Facebook profile to connect all the Facebook Pages to that separate account. It’s a good way to fully separate many business accounts from your own personal account. You might name that separate Facebook profile “Ken at Work” or make up a name. Then you can create pages using that account. For most small business users and entrepreneurs with only a few pages, I would recommend just using your own personal Facebook profile to connect your pages plus you won’t violate Facebook’s community guidelines like I mentioned earlier.

Manage Accounts with HootSuite

HootSuite Tabs for business and personal separation

HootSuite can help you manage your social media accounts and help you separate your personal and professional social media lives. Basically, it uses tabs for each stream in a social media account. You can create custom tabs, for instance called “Personal” and “Professional” and keep track of feeds and special search feeds. For instance, I have a tab called “Monitoring” where I keep up to date on what people are saying in the blogging world, allowing me to enter the conversation at any time. With HootSuite’s posting abilities, you can choose which accounts you want to post from and schedule them in the future. Very handy. I’ve found monitoring works better with Twitter than Facebook primarily because I think people are better with hashtagging on Twitter.

I also created a “Me” tab where I gather mentions and searches for my name so I can monitor my personal brand. I suggest you do the same.

Updates

Facebook is constantly changing the user interface and methods for separating business and personal. I’ll be posting more articles on Facebook strategies and learnings as I go, so please subscribe to my blog to stay notified and schedule a Facebook consulting session with me to help with recent changes. Also, I periodically update this page with new information, so bookmark it for reference.

Resources



155 responses

  1. Sharon Manuel Avatar
    Sharon Manuel

    HI. I have a personal facebook page plus I was involved with a small non-profit that wanted a facebook presence so years ago I created one but it it joined to my personal account. Is there a way to split that non-profit profile to a separate account?

    1. Hi Sharon. You can add another admin to the non-profit account and then have that admin remove you from the non-profit account. Facebook likes to have real people (personal profiles) manage pages. You can assign the non-profit page as an asset to a Facebook Business entity as well ( https://business.facebook.com/latest/home ) but that is more advanced / complicated.

  2. Hi Ken,
    I have a business page from my personal account and I have always received notifications about my business page which when I reply to the notifications it does so in my page name but now for some reason if i reply to a business page notification I can only reply in my own personal name. Also when I comment on my business page I receive a notification to say what i’ve done on my business page. It’s like my page has disconnected from my profile somehow, do you have any idea’s please?
    I can comment on my business page in my business name that’s fine, I can just only reply to notifications in my name.
    Thanks, Joanne

  3. jennifer owens Avatar
    jennifer owens

    I have started a facebook page and obviously have my personal but how can i request people or groups from my page and not my personal?? is there a way to do that? i dont want to have everyone my friend on my personal page before i can request them to my work page then theres no point in the work page……..

  4. Hi Ken. I use the Facebook developer apps to send my website posts to my Facebook pages. Up until March 29 this worked well, but now all these posts are going to my personal profile and not showing up on the relevant pages. How can I fix this? Regards, Michael

  5. Hi Ken, I want to switch my personal IG account to a business one to be able to get the ig engagement insights but it requires me to link a fb business account. What’s the best way to switch my personal FB without losing my friends or they noticing it’s now a business as I just want the IG insights. Hope I was able to explain my situation properly as it’s a little confusing. Thanks in advance

  6. I have a business page and post with my personal page on the groups I joined to steer people to the business page but people message me on my personal one and it says “accept” or “decline”. So far, I have to accept so that I can respond to them and have them go to the business page for further communication but is there an easier way to do this and bypass the need to respond thru my personal page and just do it directly from the business account?

    1. Hi Isa. No, groups are just person-to-person at this point. I think you are already doing the right thing by responding to them via your personal account and directing them to your business page. You can maybe have a link to use when you post in a group, but that might look spammy. You might want to use Facebook ads or Google AdWords to direct people to your business page or create a website and direct users to your business page from there. If you are too salesy with people they won’t trust you, so you need to go slow and earn their trust. Good luck!

  7. Ken,

    I created a personnel acct and then did a page for my business. 3 times in the last 2 weeks FB has come in and asked me to verifiy my identity. Which I have. Then after a few days they let me back in only to start all over. Then it happend again. This time right in the middle of a “boost a post” on my business page. Then they asked me for my ID again. Which I again provided. I have not posted anything that would cause harm or concern, just promoting my business on my business page and on my personal page I state who I am and what my company is and a link to there, but keep my personal account very brief. People liked my personnel page then I was able to invite them to the business page, but again after a few hours it locked me out.

    What am I doing wrong to cause this to happen. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

    1. Hi Josh. I’m not sure what would cause this to happen. What category is your business page / what is it for? Is tour personal profile empty? You should have content like a real person.

  8. I have already created one page
    Page ID: https://www.facebook.com/seyedrezabazyar

    How to convert a personal profile to a page?

    I want to have only one page. Just with this ID: seyedrezabazyar (This page will replace my personal profile)

  9. thanks
    very good 🙂

  10. Hey Ken,

    I currently have a client who’s social media page I manage. I just took a job working for a company as social media manager. I am able to navigate through my pages pretty well with the triangle drop down, but I’ve got a few questions:

    1) How can I make it so that when I’d like to, I can surf through facebook as one of my business pages and just like/comment on things as I want to interact with them. Currently I have to click the little Icon on the post that shows either my personal profile picture or my business page profile pics to toggle between which account i’m engaging as. It gets annoying having to do this on every post I interact with. I’d like to be able to click a button that allows me to just surf Facebook as a business page until I decide not to anymore.

    2) With my current situation of managing a social media page for my employer, and also on the side for another client, do I need to have a FB Business account? If I just keep doing it the way I have it now, can I still boost posts and run ads for my client and my employer pages with different payment methods?

    1. Hey Dev, you are right, it is annoying having to change the account you are posting as. I don’t think there is a way around that. Maybe if you are only logged in as the page with no other pages, but that’s not a realistic scenario. If you have a social media agency you need a FB Business Account. If I were a client, I know I would want you to have one. Anything you can do to demonstrate professionalism in a saturated field like social media will give you an edge.

  11. David Johnstone Avatar
    David Johnstone

    For me this change is useless. I want a page where people in my area can post images for the enjoyment of others. It is not a business page yet I can’t switch off “boosts” which is ruining my pleasure.

    1. Try creating a Facebook Group.

  12. Is there a way to keep my business page seperate from my personal account? Like I don’t people to know that Im running the business page I do have

  13. Hi, I am Susmita from Smartvive. Sir, can you solve my a little confusion? I have a Business Page but I want to create a new Business Page without removing first page. Can I do it?

    1. Yes, you can have a lot of pages. I’m not aware of a limit.

    2. Yes, you can create multiple pages. This is easy using the Facebook Pages apps for smartphones.

  14. Hi, So what do I have to do if my BRAND name is my actual name and when people search for me, I want my PAGE to come up and not my personal profile at all?

    I’m not sure I saw a direct answer for this…

    Thanks

    1. It depends. If people are searching within Facebook they will both come up, but in different categories – 1 for pages and 1 for people. If people are searching on Google you can make your personal profile hidden from search engines to make the page come up instead of your personal profile. This is what I do.

  15. Hello Ken.

    My Facebook dropdown does not show the option: Use Facebook as:

    I already have a page created and now I can’t seem to follow other pages as my page. It use to have this option but now it shows me following from my personal page even when I am posting as my other page.

    Have any idea why?

    1. Hey Ken, I found out how to do this on Facebook Help. Thank you anyway.

  16. Melinda Mullet Avatar
    Melinda Mullet

    Ken – I have a personal/private Facebook page and one for myself as an author. When I get friend requests I can’t tell if they are trying to friend me under my personal account or through my author page. Is there a way to tell? Notifications for both pages just seem to be rolled into one.

    1. Dear Ken – When setting up fb for my business of course i had to use a real name to create the account. We then used that account to promote the business. Then i set up a page to promote the business using the business name but now we need to hide the account details or at least the private name from the account page. Even better would be to hide the account page 100% so only the business page is available. I have seen many posts about this but no real answer. Please help us.

    2. Use the Facebook Pages app for the phone and it will be more clear.

  17. Hi! I found this post while searching how can I promote content from a personal FB account. What you suggest here is what FB actually suggests. But the point is that there is a big difference between a person, who posts real estate ads in his personal account and a blogger, who posts his thoughts. I make music and I want to show it to friends. It is a personal thing, not a big-band-business. Sometimes I want a post to be seen by more people. I don’t think I have to make page and start everythig from zero for that. You know people are being invited to like pages daily and they don’t like it. I tried to switch my ad account from business (I am admin of several pages) to personal, but FB just doesn’t let me to do it. So do you know ways to promote, highlight a post from a personal account?
    Thanks in advance!

    1. Hi. There are many strategies to promote from Facebook. I specialize in doing this… you’ll need to setup a session with me because there is a lot to discuss and I can’t discuss all of it in this comment. Re-read the article and look through the comments on the blog post. If you still need help visit https://kenmorico.com/consulting

    2. Well if you write posts that your friends interact with he Facebook algorithm will show your posts to more of your friends, so you get a boost there. If you want to promote in an inorganic way you’ll need a page.

  18. Stephen Udochi Avatar
    Stephen Udochi

    I have Several Doubt and Fears.

    Please If I migrate my Personal profile to Fan page

    1. Do I loose my personal account

    If I don’t loose my personal account, will there be any restrictions to my personal account.

    2. will my timelines n personal account still be intact?
    3. will my pictures in personal account still be there
    4. will it still work normal like any account that don’t have page in the first place
    5. Also will the page look like every normal page that is not done through personal profile to Fan page. If Not what will be the difference.

    Thanks

    1. I would not recommend converting your personal profile to a fan / business page. Better to start fresh.

  19. Hey! I own 2 businesses and one of them wont show up on my personal “about me”. How can I get this one to show up when people come to my personal page?

    1. Is it public? Perhaps Facebook only allows 1 page to be associated with your about section. You can like the pages and they will show up in your likes section. Or you can create a link to an external website and link to the 2 pages from there.

    2. In the about section you can add multiple work locations and highlight them there.

  20. Patrick T. Luce Avatar
    Patrick T. Luce

    This is a great post! I have one question. Is there a way to be “signed in” to your page, rather than the admin profile? I have my personal profile, and an author page. On my website, I have a facebook comments section, but if I reply to someone’s commend on my page I am automatically commenting as my profile, not as my page. I would like to reply as the author, not just the guy from my profile.

    1. Sure. There is a menu in the Facebook comments to comment as a personal profile or as the page. It’s not obvious, but it is there.

  21. Hiya Ken – GOLD blog post THANKYOU. Question: Can followers of my business page see my personal profile (assuming they are not FB Friends already)?

    1. Only if you create a post as yourself… which is hard to do if you are using the Facebook Pages app for iOS. I’m curious, why don’t you want people to see your personal profile?

      1. Many thanks Ken for replying – I really appreciate it! It’s not a business page per se – more of a promo page to promote my podcast about Doomsday (I’m a skeptic and am having a bit of fun myth-busting doomsday scenarios.)

        The reason I’m wanting FB privacy for my personal page is because of the demographic I am targeting with my podcast. I don’t want the people accessing the podcast seeing pictures of my child and family etc.

        I’m going to be following ‘doomsday prepper’ groups with 3000+ followers. To me they are an unknown kind of target demographic that have a reputation for being pro-guns etc. Feels too vulnerable. There’s also some race hate and political polarity in some of the demographic that I’m cautious of. Women in media get horribly trolled in vicious and incredibly threatening ways if they speak out sometimes. Not that I intend to offend anyone with my fun lil’ old podcast but I want to safeguard myself anyway. Feels like the right thing to do.

  22. Hi I created a ‘fake’ personal Facebook account so that I could then create various business pages for the company I work for. Now Facebook won’t let me login and is asking for ID. Is there anything that I can do to save the business pages which have been very successful?

    1. Did you contact Facebook? Whenever you use fake accounts you run the risk of getting shut down. You can have multiple people as administrators for Facebook pages. There has been a shift with Facebook business pages in that a business is setup first with Facebook and then you select administrators, editors, etc… people with different permission levels.

  23. My colleague set up a facebook page for my business via his personal account/email, I wish to transfer this page to new email/account but his account remain active (as he has other two facebook pages) linked to the personal account

    Is this possible?

    Thank you

    Lisa

    1. Sure. He can set you as a page administrator. It’s pretty easy in the Facebook interface now. Or he can create the business in business.facebook.com and add you from there if it is real business and not really a hobby.

  24. Hi! So after reading through all of this I’m still slightly confused. I would like to have one account for my current business page and one account for my also current personal page. All I want to do is separate them so I can have my personal page deactivated but still connected if I were to ever choose to connect them later. I have two emails in my account settings but I need to get a separate login for my business page separate from my personal page. Less association to my personal page is what I’m going for. How do I go about this? Or is this even possible to do?

  25. Remy Stuart Avatar
    Remy Stuart

    How does it work when you have your personal page set up to private only for your contacts? Will a fan page remain with same privacy settings as personal page or it can be specified for it to be public?

  26. Hi
    I have created a business page and have a personal account. When i try to post on the business page it ends up showing on my personal account and not on the business page. How do i stop this and only post on the business page separately from personal.

  27. Thanks for the article, I think customizing Facebook business pages is a good idea. Could you suggest some resources for mid-level developers?

    1. Hi Brian. The iFrame tab tools I mention in the article are probably the way to go. If you have the time, building a separate app that integrates with Facebook would draw in users, but that takes a lot of time to build. iOS and Android have software kits to help build out app integrations as well.

  28. Jim Bitros Avatar
    Jim Bitros

    I have a Facebook business page as well as a Facebook personal page which I would like to keep totally separate. However every time I post something on my business page it also appears on my personal page. Is there a way I can avoid that.

    Also when people comment on my Facebook business page I get notified at the personal e mail address I have on file with Facebook. Is there a way to not be notified via my e mail address. There is a possibility that I could get hundreds of comments each week and that would tie up my e mail inbox. Also is there a way to prevent notifications each time someone likes or comments on my business page. I would like my comments and likes to be visible when I access my business page but not forwarded to me each time.
    Also I want to keep my personal page as is and continue to receive e mails and notifications from my friends.

    Hopefully I made what I am looking for as clear as possible. If you could help me That would be great. If you can’t I still appreciate your taking the time to review this.
    Thanks,
    Jim

  29. Aloha! I have a business FB account and now wish to have a personal presence on FB where I can connect with friends and family outside of my business. How do I go about creating a personal presence on FB through my current business account (since it is not recommended or legal to create a separate account)? The only information out there seems to be on how to create a business presence from a personal account by creating a business Page; I am looking for the opposite. Thanks!

  30. Hi Ken –
    2 things about my facebook page

    1- is there a way to tell WHO exactly “likes” my page? I can’t seem to find it.

    2 – can i request friends to like my facebook page without having them be a friend of my regular facebook profile?
    thanks!

  31. I set up a a business page for my work through my personal account. Now they have launched a new website and the IT department set up a new FB page for the company. How do I delete the original business page from my account without affecting my personal profile?

  32. Hi Ken,
    I wonder if you (or anyone else) could help me. I have my personal fb page, and my varisty society page which I can ‘act as’ when logged on. I need to pass the reigns over to a new member of the society, but need to change the logon details for the society page. It seems there is a way for normal people to do this to their details (by clicking on the star, and then account settings), but when acting as the society there is no ‘account settings’ option so I cant do it! I hope I’m making sense…. any idea how I can change the society logon details some other way? (and I know I can just make my successor the admin of the page, but I want to change the details altogether)
    Thanks for your time!
    Regards,
    Gabi

  33. Hi Ken! If you’re still around and answering questions, I’ve got one: Like many of your commenters, I made the mistake of converting my existing personal profile to a page. I’m an actor, and wanted to create a biz page to manage the promotional and networking aspects of my career. I thought I would be able to connect to other industry pages (theatre companies, production companies, etc) by “liking” them, and that I’d see what was happening with these pages in my newsfeed. Unfortunately, when I converted my page, FB automatically created a business account to manage the page (which I expected) and I lost the newsfeed function (which I did not expect) as well as the ability to interact with the pages I liked (which I also did not expect).

    I’ve since created a personal profile and added that profile as an admin to my page, hoping to take advantage of the “use Facebook as XX Page” function. (incidentally, I created this new personal profile reluctantly, because I understand it to technically be a violation of FB policy, but I didn’t know what else to do. FB made it sound like the only other option was to convert the page back to a personal profile, which didn’t make sense from a branding/marketing perspective).

    Unfortunately, the “use Facebook as Page” function doesn’t appear to work. When I log in under my personal profile and select the “use as page” option, I only get a blank page (i’ve tried this in three different browsers on both a Mac and a PC). Refreshing doesn’t help. The only thing that gets me back to a page that displays any content is to type the FB url into my browser address bar, which brings me to my “page” dashboard. But, once there, my newsfeed shows only one story from one of the pages that i’ve liked. When I click on “Pages Feed” (I initially thought that maybe I was just looking in the wrong place), FB displays a message that tells me to “like some pages so I can see what’s happening with them.” Argh! I’ve already liked a bunch of pages! When I click “Page Likes,” Facebook just lists a bunch of suggestions for pages, but none of the pages I’ve actually already liked (either as my Page or as my personal profile). The only way that I can see anything that’s happening with my biz page is to log out completely, and then log back in with the biz account credentials.

    I don’t know if this is something to do with the fact that I technically have two admins for my page (the business account that was created when I converted my personal profile to a biz page AND the new personal profile I created), or if it’s something else. But it’s very frustrating.

    I am thinking I ought to remove the business account as an admin on the page, but I’m afraid that if I do that, I won’t be able to access my biz page at all (because the only way in will be through my personal profile, and i can’t seem to get the “use as page” function to work).

    Thoughts??

    Thanks!!

  34. Hello,

    I wonder if you can tell me what administrators of business or fan pages can see or do with other people’s personal pages, from which they might otherwise (on a personal level) be blocked. I have a concern about a business page owner who may be accessing my family’s pages even though she is blocked. Also, she uses the same personal/business photo and name so I am confused if she is able to send messages or post to personal pages from her business page. What are the rules? I’ve blocked the user profile of this person on each of my family member’s pages, but we can still see her business page so I am confused if she is really blocked from seeing our pages. Thank you!

    1. Hello. I think you need to read through the documentation on Facebook for this. If you block someone you can still probably see their profile, but not the other way around. You’ll need to confirm with the Facebook documents. There are some links on my post that point out to the documentation.

  35. Karen Sloan Avatar
    Karen Sloan

    HI ken

    I have/had a personal profile to showcase my art and then converted to a business page and now my personal account is merged or rather gone!. I am set as manager of admin, should I set up a new personal profile and select that as manager of admin to un -merge the original profile and page? HELP!

  36. Hi Ken!

    I am setting up my FB page for my personal business that Im launching. I’ve been reading up about using your personal account to create this page or to set up a second personal account for this purpose. I would have no problem using the personal account – however if I use my personal account I never have the option of quiting FB in the future but if I use a second account – I believe this is against T&Cs and FB can just shut it down.. is it worth the risk?

    Any Thoughts or Help on this matter would be greatly appreciated 🙂

    1. Well you can setup the page independent of your personal account with its own login and then make yourself an administrator of the page. Why would you want to quit Facebook?????? 🙂

      1. Thanks for the response 🙂

        To be honest I’m not a massive fan of the incessant selfpromotion on FB and have often felt like I’d like to quit my personal account. I presume if I follow what you suggest – I’d still have to link it to my personal account i.e. always have it live?

        Would you advise against a second personal profile to set up this page? Appreciate your feedback Ken 🙂

        1. Ahh I think I get you Ken,

          I can set up another, secondary personal profile later on to manage the page, is that right? Would I get the same admin etc rights using the secondary profile opposed to the original profile?

          Again is there any risks involved in doing this, in terms of violating T&Cs of Facebook?

          Really appreciate it 🙂

        2. Hello again. Yes, you are correct…. it would need to be linked to your personal profile, but that makes it easier to manage. You can setup a second personal profile, though *technically* this violates FB policy, but I haven’t seen any accounts shut down that stay quiet (i.e. not publicly post). FB found a VERY high percentage of people that closed their account reopened it soon after. Just FYI…

  37. great article Ken – thanks! Do you know if it is possible to put a ‘like’ button for a business page on a personal profile? Thanks, Jane

    1. Hi Jane. Personal profiles in Facebook are limited to the layout Facebook imposes. Someone would have to dig through your about section to see your likes. There might be an algorithm that cycles though highlighted pages (kind of like the MySpace Top Friends), but I’m not sure how it works or if it weights certain pages.

      1. I appreciate that Ken!

  38. Hi Ken,
    I have a personal FB account and 1 Business page under it. I also have a small online store. I now want to connect my onlline store to my Business page on FB so that I can sell my products through the Business page. There are apps that do that. But my fear is that the apps will create the store on my personal FB page instead of the Business page under it? The only way out appears to have a separate FB account for my business. Any suggestions?

  39. I have a personal page and a published public business page – both under my personal log-in. In “Who Can Look Me Up – do you want other search engines to link to your timeline” I’ve set that to off. I don’t want my personal page to show up in search engines, however, I do want my public published business page to be found by search engines – can I have one set to private and the other to be accessible by search engines? I have searched the web for an answer and can’t find one so if you can help me I’d be very thankful. If I can’t do that, can I split them and make them totally separate?

    1. Facebook Pages are public by default…. I wouldn’t use a Facebook Page for SEO, set up a real Web site and use the FB page to keep in contact with your customers.

  40. It’s hard to come by experienced people in this particular subject, however, you sound like you know what you’re talking about! Thanks!!

  41. hi thank you for all your info above but I cannot find any area that covers my questions I may have missed it. Question is when I am on my business page and I go to other peoples pages or business pages there is no like option visible unlike when in my persoanl profile. What am I dpoing wrong please?

  42. I have been advised to deactivate my personal page for a while, hoeever I have a page that is tied to it. Is there a way to deactivate my personal page without taking down my business page? can I setup another user with a different email address and tie my business page to it? Please let me know. I could really use your help!

    1. Hi Sweets. You can add another administrator user to the business page and then remove your personal profile account. Let me know if more questions. 🙂

  43. Hi Ken, can you have a business page with privacy settings? My audience selector tool only gives me the option of public or location. I want to make photos etc only visible to likers. The business page isn’t attached to a personal page. Thank you.

  44. Good article, Ken. Where you refer to setting up a “dummy profile” on FB, isn’t that in contravention to the FB rule of being allowed to only have one FB account? The FB site is quite clear on this – perhaps this has changed, if so please advise.

    I would like to set up business pages and dispense entirely with personal profiles by setting up a “dummy profile” to administer it, and I am sure many do this. However, in doing so, do you/we not take a risk of being “discovered” and having your account(s) blocked or being banned?

    Thanks!

    1. Hi Robert. You are correct. Thanks for bringing this up. It is technically against Facebook policy. However, the reason the policy exists is because Facebook doesn’t want fake profiles commenting, creating status updates, adding friends, etc. This makes sense. The dummy accounts I and others use do none of these things. They exist simply to manage pages / work with the API. I haven’t seen any dummy profiles killed. That being said, if you can connect pages to your personal profile, that is the best option.

  45. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Hi Ken—I just created a page for the band I’m in, and set the Privacy settings to “Public”, but then when I switched to my personal profile, I saw that it ALSO was switched to “Public”. How do I keep my band page public and my personal profile page private?….Michael

    1. Hi Michael. The personal profile settings and Page settings are separate. See the screenshot in my comment to Devon. The “Use Facebook As” feature might be confusing in this regard.

  46. Devon Raphael Avatar
    Devon Raphael

    Why is it when you find my business on Google search, than click on to it you are brought to my personal Facebook page and not my business Facebook page? In sort google: “SF motorcycle detailing” click onto “The Devils Detail” and see what happens. Not what I want and not what my target audiance is looking for.
    What have I done and how can this be corrected?

    1. When I search for this on Google it just takes me to my Facebook homepage. Is the page public? There is a publish setting that will make the page public or hidden.

  47. chris brown Avatar
    chris brown

    thank you for all this great information. the name of my business is very similar to my personal profile name created back in the day, personal: christopher bean coffee bus: christopher bean coffee company. when people search they find my personal profile first, how can i promote my company page and keep folks from finding my personal profile first.

    1. Devon Raphael Avatar
      Devon Raphael

      Thanks Chris, but we have completely different prolbems.
      When I ‘googled’ your name I find that you’re in jail presently.
      And I had no problem getting to both your Facebook pages (business and personal) via through searches on Google and Bing.

      People can not get to my Facebook business page WHAT SO EVER!

      They can find my business title off of Google/Bing which states it as a Facebook account page. When clicked on to Google/Bing’s listing of it, it will brings you to my personal Facebook page, not my business page.

      PLEASE CAN SOMEONE HELP ME WITH THIS!
      SOS! HELP! SOS!

      1. Hi Devon. Have you logged out of Facebook and Google and tried the search that way? There are a lot of personalization that happen when users are logged in. Also, did you convert the business / personal page at some point? Did they share the same username?

        1. Devon Raphael Avatar
          Devon Raphael

          Hi Ken.
          Thanks for the suggestions.
          I’ve done what you asked: sign out of FB then do a google search for my business and it brought me to facebook’s sign-up/sign-in page, not my FB business page; made business page public got same results. I had to sign-in to my personal FB to be brought to my business page via through my personal page.
          If I delete either or both FB accounts I can not recreate new accounts using their present titles… correct?

          1. I wouldn’t delete your pages. Google crawled your page at one point because the cache is still there. So you must have changed something that took it down. I can’t find you page when I’m logged into Facebook, so I still think it’s not public. Here is a screenshot with my page settings. http://awesomescreenshot.com/0541krna4d Try to match them on your page.

  48. Hi Ken great blog can you tell me how do I stop my business page updates showing up on my personal page?

    1. Hi Babs. Do you mean in the news feed? You should be able to hide posts using the “Hide…” menu item. If you click the down arrow on a post. If you mean something else, please add more detail and I’ll see if I can help.

  49. allison Avatar
    allison

    When I am in my business page, and operating as such, and I like another business it doesn’t show up on my personal page likes rather than in my personal likes. Do you have suggestions on how I can fix this, or what I’m doing wrong.

    1. I think this is by design. If you want a like to show in your personal profile, you’ll need to Like pages using your personal profile.

  50. Sibnew Avatar
    Sibnew

    Hi Ken,

    Thanks for your informative post. I have a question regarding facebook page. Hopefully you are still around to answer.

    The situation is that I am selling artwork at Etsy and want a facebook page to kinda stay connected with people from Etsy andd other people on facebook who are interested in art. (Kind of advertising my Etsy shop through facebook in a way.)

    So, I decided to create a facebook page that doesn’t bound with any personal profile. The result was that there is no search tab on the top of the page when I logged in. Plus, I couldn’t ‘like’ any other page -which would be my point of creating this page.

    I now have no hope, Ken. (T^T)
    Please light my way.

    1. Hello. Try adding your personal account as an administrator and see if that helps. Even though it is technically connected to your personal profile, your personal information shouldn’t be exposed (unless you want it to). Re-read the post and some of the comments for other ideas. Hope this helps. Let me know if you encounter further issues.

  51. Cindy Kane Avatar
    Cindy Kane

    I have two facebook pages I use my personal page all the time. I have not used my business page in atleast 6 months. I now want to post on my business page again. When I enter my login email and password it now just goes to my personal page. I can actually log in with two different emails but it still goes to my personal page. When I google my business page it comes up but I cant update it. I did click on the new little icon and there is no option listed there for me to use facebook as. Can you help me. Thanks Cindy

    1. Seems like you created the business page as a standalone page with its own email? Maybe you find the login for the business page and then add your personal profile as an administrator for the page.

  52. Jo Leal Avatar
    Jo Leal

    I have a personal page and 5 years ago created a business page. I’ve left that business now and want to turn over the admin to someone else. I put in her email on the business page and now her name is on my personal page. Can’t find help on Facebook!

    1. Hi Jo. This seems strange. Are you sure you were in the Business Page section of Facebook when you did this? Can you explain ” I put in her email on the business page and now her name is on my personal page.”? How is her name on your personal page? What are you seeing?

  53. Can I have one personal profile account with my business email address (connected to the business page) and then another personal profile account with my home email address? Can both have the same date of birth? If I ever leave my job, I don’t want the connection to my previous employer. Is this possible?

    1. Hi Susan. You can have two personal profiles. I believe a lot of people share your sentiment – they are worried that their personal account is connected to their employer’s business page. The Facebook tools that enable posting work pretty well and I don’t think I’ve ever mis-posted before. You can always assign another administrator for the business page and it will disconnect your account.

  54. G.Davis Avatar
    G.Davis

    I have a personal page and a business page. When I add photos and comments in reference to my business the information does not post to my business page, it shows on my personal page. This is frustrating. How can this issue be corrected?

    1. Hi G. Try clicking on your business page and post from there. Also, in the article I discuss the Use Facebook As feature. Give it a shot and let us know if you have any problems.

  55. Kind of curious… When I comment on a blog using their facebook comment interface, I can change my “post as” to my business name and the avatar will change to my business name. But, it still links to my personal facebook page, not my business. Any Ideas?

    1. Hello Tim. Yes, this doesn’t work when you comment on external sites. I would love it if this worked, but it doesn’t. You may try commenting on pages within the Facebook ecosystem.

  56. Mick D Avatar
    Mick D

    Hi Ken,

    I have the same question as Darren, below, but don’t see an answer.

    I have a personal profile, but when I post through my business page it
    shows up as a post from my personal profile – is there anyway to change
    this?

    1. Hi Mick. Not sure why this is happening. If you log in to Facebook with your personal profile and click your business page and post from there it should show up as from your business page. This is the way I do it and it works for me. Are you using any third-party tools?

      1. Mick D Avatar
        Mick D

        Ken! Thanks for the quick reply – you’re the best.
        I think I didn’t explain my little problem accurately before.

        Here’s what’s happening:
        I have a Personal Profile and a Business Page.
        When I add friends from my *Business Page* and they accept, they are only appearing on my Personal Page.

        Looks like if I convert the Personal Page to a Bus. Page, it’ll just create a brand *new* Bus. Page – not migrate info to my *existing* Bus. Page. Also seems like the new Bus. Page will have my name, instead of my business name.

        Ideally, I’d like to migrate the friends from my Personal Page to my Bus. Page, then delete the Personal Page.

        Hope this makes sense, it’s a little hard to explain.
        Thanks very much for any advice!

        1. Hi Mick. If it didn’t force your firends to be followers when you converted your profile, then it appears they will have to be invited to the page in the traditional way, using the build audience tab in the Facebook Page. You can’t force your friends to be page followers. It will be hard to build your audience in this way, unfortunately. But the good news is that it will force you to focus your efforts on organic ways to get followers. In reality, if people “follow” you but aren’t really interested it won’t matter anyway. Hope this helps.

  57. I migrated my account to business and now I cannot search or find groups. I really was hoping to utilize groups, but every time I search a group even with a link it goes directly to my page?? Very frustrating.
    any ideas.
    Thanks,
    Jeff

    1. Hi Jeff. It seems Pages can’t comment in groups. Maybe this feature will be added later. Personally, I don’t use groups on Facebook. It seems the Google+ community is stronger in this way. You can comment on the wall of other pages and get discussions going that way.

  58. Gary Craig Avatar
    Gary Craig

    I set my business page up but when I go to other pages to like or post I can’t . It won’t let me.
    Any idea why.

  59. hi. I am confused b/c I have set my personal facebook page for my posts to be restricted to friends only. But for my ‘page’ about my business, I want those posts to be public. I can’t figure out how to make this distinction – there must be a way to differentiate….?

  60. rktommy Avatar
    rktommy

    i have a few business pages profile attached to my personal fb page. Now, i am trying to insert a wordpress plug on my blog to post to my business profile page automatically. The plugin is asking me a username and password. Since I manage my business accounts through my personal, what do I provide in the plugin? I don’t want the business blog postings on the personal fb wall. I can’t find any other information out on the web for this. I hope you can help.

    1. Hello. I don’t think the plugin is setup to manage the multiple pages. It’s harder to code, so I image there aren’t many plugins that will do what you want. I would look for a plugin that will let you select the pages to filter the posts to. HootSuite might do what you want via RSS feeds.

  61. Daniella Avatar
    Daniella

    Hello, is there any way to start a business Facebook page WITHOUT starting a personal???? I don’t want to friend people, I would like one for the site purpose. So anyone can jut browse!! Thanks DANIELLA

    1. Hi Daniella. You can create a Facebook Page without a personal profile. Just sign out and click create a page. Here’s the link http://www.facebook.com/pages/create/?ref_type=sitefooter I wouldn’t recommend it though. It’s easier to administer the page when it’s connected to your profile.

  62. Carmen Barsetti Avatar
    Carmen Barsetti

    Hi Ken, I have two questions. I’m new to FB and have a business page. A buisness added me to their front page and I can’t figure out how to do the same. Also, I am a designer and my FB page uses the bus. name, yet some people try and find me on FB by my personal name. Is there a way to have both searches lead to your page?

    1. Hi Carmen. I think you are referring to the “featured” section in the page administration area. Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to make the Facebook search direct people to just your Facebook Page if your name is the same as your page. You can make your personal page more private and people may get the idea that it’s just for friends.

  63. Facebook Issue Avatar
    Facebook Issue

    I converted a profile that a previous employee set up as a personal profile. To avoid terms of use issues I decided to convert it to a stand alone page with no personal account associated with it. So the page is the admin, and there is no other posting method or “settings” issues.

    What I have found is that now when administrating the page we can no longer “like” othere pages. Which is somewhat troublesome for networking.
    Is there a fix?

    1. That’s pretty strange. The only thing I can suggest is to make your personal profile an administrator of the page and see if you can “like” other pages.

  64. Carolyn Sylvester Odell Avatar
    Carolyn Sylvester Odell

    I have a personal account with Facebook. I build a photography page Carolyn Odell Photography page to share my work. It won’t let me it automatically switches to my personal account. How do you separate or prevent this from happening? ANy ideas?

    1. Hi Carolyn. I’m not quite sure what you are asking. I discuss some methods of switching between your personal account and business page in the blog post. Please review the blog post again and let me know what your specific issue is. Thanks!

  65. Hi,

    I created a Facebook Page and now my boss will take over the control of it. Do I need to switch it over to his personal profile as he is already an admin?

    Also, whenever I do anything on the company page it comes up as my company’s activity. Is there a way to switch between a comment from Sophie and comment from the company on my company page where I am also an admin? It would be nice to mix so that my personal friends see something that I write on my company page.

    Thanks for your help

    1. Hi Sophie. You can have multiple admins for a page connected with personal accounts. You can drop off the page as an admin if you like and let your boss run it. It sounds like he is already connected to the page with his personal profile. As far as switching, when you are on the company page as an admin, there is an option at the top to switch to your personal profile. It’s above the status updates, but different from the main switch button at the very top right.

  66. Ug, I just migrated my personal profile to a business page, I didn’t realize I wouldn’t be able keep and join groups. Is there a way to create a personal profile page besides the business page?

    1. Teddy, I’m wondering the same thing, I converted to a Page assuming I could then create a new personal profile under the account. I can not find such an option anywhere and no one else seems to be asking this question or getting any answers.

      Very frustrating.

      If I could find any answer at all, at least a note that it’s officially NOT possible, I would perhaps create a new account with a new email address and then add it as an admin to the old page. That’s about all I can think of.

      1. Hi Travis. What would you need a personal profile under the Business Page for? Groups? Let us know and there might be a workaround. Thanks.

        1. Hello Ken,

          Here’s how it went down:

          My personal profile was /vocino (username/url). I wanted that to be my public figure page. I converted my personal profile to a page.

          Subsequently, I now have a strictly business account under travis@vocino.com. Now, I’d like to create a personal profile under that same account which owns the Pages.

          My only option appears to be to create a personal profile under a new email address, add that account as a Manager to the Page, then delete the old account, switch the new personal profile account (which now owns the pages) to my primary email address.

          1. I see. Yeah once you converted the page it screwed things up. I think it’s too late to fix, unless you contact Facebook and maybe they can do something, but I wouldn’t count on it. Your solution seems to be the way to go with creating a new personal account. I think it’s important to keep in mind when Mark Zuckerberg was originally programming Facebook in the early days he wasn’t thinking about brands and brand pages. Now things are messy.

            I actually have the same problem with the username. I use /kenmorico for my personal profile and haven’t given my Facebook Page a friendly username. The way Facebook setup the links it makes it difficult for personal brands. Honestly though, most people type a name in the search bar to get to pages these days, so the url isn’t as important as it used to be. It’s good for business cards, but those are going away soon anyway.

    2. Hi Teddy. A personal profile is really just for friends. I understand your frustration not being able to join groups. It does seem like a huge flaw with Facebook Pages right now. Maybe instead of joining groups you can comment on the walls of other pages and reach out that way? You could create a feed and mimic a “group” so it’s easier to keep track of posts and comment.

    3. Darren Avatar
      Darren

      I have a personal profile but when I post through my business page it shows up as a post from my personal profile – is there anyway to change this???

  67. Barbara Avatar
    Barbara

    Hello, I have my own personal face book page connected to a businees page. Is there a way I can have my status updates from the business page link to my business twitter acct?

  68. Sherry Avatar
    Sherry

    I have a personal profile and a professional page set up; but I still don’t see if friends have access to both or how to keep professional friends from accessing my personal profile? Am I being clear as mud? I must be missing something. Thanks.

    1. Hi Sherry. The two are totally separate, however your friends would normally only see your page content if they liked the page. Note that Page content is almost always “public,” so anyone could in theory see the content. The same goes for content in your personal profile. If you set your status updates to public, anyone could see them. If you don’t want professional friends to see your personal profile updates, set your status updates to a limited exposure in your privacy settings.

  69. Phil Drane Avatar
    Phil Drane

    hi ken, I am a solo musician so i’m in a similar situation to you regarding personal and private networking. I have read many opinions on which is better – a) converting a personal account to a business page or b) setting up a completely separate business page attached to my existing personal profile. I know for instance that in scenario a) existing friends can be transferred as ‘fans’, but this is not possible in scenario b). I understand there are other important differences too. Which way did you choose and what persuaded you to go that way? Cheers, Phil Drane, New Zealand

    1. Hi Phil. I have a separate business page from my personal profile. My situation is a bit different from yours in that my page is for a very specific audience. Music and art have wide audiences and are great for Facebook. The personal account will let you keep your family separate from your fans, which personally is the way I want it. You can obviously cross-promote and let your friends and family know about your Facebook page. If you have an email list, that is best because you can message your real fans so you are not dependent on any platform like Facebook. My brother is an artist and I setup a page for him, but I know he does most of the marketing for his shows through email. I think most of my friends really don’t care about my blog to be honest, but my real fans and blog readers do. And I care about mom seeing photos of how fat I’ve gotten. So, to make a short answer long, I prefer separate. Regards, Ken

  70. Dainius Avatar
    Dainius

    Hello Ken,

    I have personal facebook account and now i have created business page. I don’t want friends know about that, how would i do it ? Don’t ask why! I need fully functional page like a separate account.
    Thank you

    1. Hello Dainius. As far as I know, if you setup the page using your personal account and you don’t click “like” on your own page, then I don’t think anyone will know. If you sign out of Facebook and start a fresh business page without attaching it to a personal profile, that might be the best way. Or create a fake personal profile and create the page from the fake profile like I mention in the post. Hope this helps!

  71. Hi Ken,

    I have a personal Facebook account and I have recently created a business page that I am the Admin for. Can I make my business page public without having to make my personal page public. If, yes, how do I do that. Spent hours trying to figure this out.

    1. Hi Amy. Yes you can. Business pages are usually public. I keep my personal Facebook profile very private. I believe you just set your privacy settings and there is a feature that allows you to view your personal profile as the public sees it.

  72. Hi Ken,
    I have been setting up FB pages for a few months now for some clients and all the accounts I have set-up are stand alone business pages that are not attached to a personal profile account as you suggested. We have a current client who had an existing business page that was linked to their personal account and would like it removed. Is it possible to remove a a business page from a personal account and continue updating it?

    1. Hi Adam. Users can remove themselves from being a page administrator, but I’m not sure what would happen if no one can update it. Someone must update the page, so usually I would suggest pages are created by the person that will manage the page. When I worked with clients I setup a fake personal profile and created the Facebook Pages using that account and assigned administrators. For most small business, they should have a personal profile and create the page from their personal profile, since they are already logged into Facebook and it’s easy to manage when they are connected.

      1. This is very true Ken. The only way I get around managing the several accounts we have is by using Hootsuite also. It is a great program to manage and view many Facebook accounts at once. Given we have already set up a few pages without a page administrator is there a way we can connect them if i created a dummy profile? Or would simply have to make all new accounts again?

        1. Yes, you should be able to add them to a new dummy profile through to page administration interface. I believe the dummy profile would have to “Like” the pages before it could manage them.

  73. Hi Ken,
    I started out with Facebook setting up a “Facebook Business Page” first “without” having a personal profile. I simply created the business page as an adminstrator. Somehow later I may have attempted to create a personal profile which got linked up to my business page. The problem I am having is that I can not change the profile photo for the personal facebook profile – it’s just the blue facebook avatar. My business page is fine and I do see myself as the administrator but I can not change my profile pic nor find my “personal profile page”. If I attempt to set up a new facebook personal profile – facebook states that there is already a profile set up with this specific email. This is correct as my facebook business page is attached to this email. How can I rectify and or edit the personal profile pic from my business page – if that’s at all possible?

    1. Hi. Sounds like a bug with Facebook. You might want to delete everything and set it up again. Create a personal profile first and then the biz page. Or, contact Facebook directly if you put in a lot of effort. Facebook breaks a lot.

  74. hi ken-

    my boss has 3 facebook pages linked to her account (clients of hers). Is there a way to completely separate the one page to be it’s own and no longer linked to her account? Thanks!

    1. Hi Jule. Pages need to be linked to an account, but you can transfer the page to a different account.

  75. crystal_spae Avatar
    crystal_spae

    Hi KEN, 
    I have a personal facebook account and I have created a page for my company under this account to promote my business. My initial thought was then I can invite all my facebook friends to “like” my company page. Then I realized with this page if I want to gain “likes” I can only wait for people to find me and “like” me. Should I sign up another personal account using the company name instead of this page so it can interact with random people on facebook better ? Please advice. Thank you !

    1. Hi Crystal. You can use the “Facebook as Page” option as I describe in the blog post. You only need one personal account. Once you use your account as the page, you can comment on random public posts as your page instead of your personal account.

  76. Empress of Virtue Avatar
    Empress of Virtue

    Hi Ken I had an existing personal FB profile and recently added a business page. The problem I am having is when I try to link FB to my business website it only links my personal page because I have one log in for both. Please help

    1. You might try the feature “Use as Facebook Page” and see if that gets you what you need. There are info sections for the business pages and you can modify links there.

  77. Haddixa Avatar
    Haddixa

    I have a personal FB page.  I believe I created a business FB page w/a different email address; it’s not set up correctly and recieves 0 likes.  I now understand I can’t have both according to FB.  I’m struggling w/how to get a business page attached to my existing personal page.

    1. You can have both. You need to make yourself an administrator of the page from the other account you have.

  78. Hi,
    I want to know how to separate out my bosses facebook page it is both  personal and business and he wants them to be separate. Is there a way to do this without losing friends or business contacts?
    Thanks

    1. Unfortunately no. There might be a way to convert a personal profile to a business page, though. He should have a separate business page though. Friends don’t want to see posts related to a business. If you create a new business page you can have him create some posts on his personal profile to direct people to his new business page.

  79. I have a personal profile and a business page on facebook. However, I would like to change the url address for my facebook business account to appear as http://www.facebook.com/businessname. Right now it looks like this: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Agenso-Group-Bilingual-Virtual-Assistants/182646698418471

    How can I change that?
    Thank you!

    1. You can now change it in your page admin area. You used to need 25 fans to do this. After this year’s F8 conference, you can pick a name without having 25 fans. Great for pages with just a few fans!

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