Facebook for Freelancers: Groups, Pages or Profiles?
Once you’ve decided Facebook is right for you as a freelancer, you’re ready to put together an action plan on how you’ll use it to promote your business and market your services.
Your next step is to decide whether to promote your business with a Profile, a Group or a Page. These are the three set-ups Facebook offers, and each has its advantages and disadvantages.
Profiles
Anyone who has used Facebook will be familiar with Profiles. Whenever a person joins Facebook, they’re given a Profile. Without a Profile, the ways in which you can use Facebook are severely limited.
Your Profile shares personal information, such as your name, birthday, relationship status, where you live and your current job.
Some freelancers choose to have two profiles – one for personal connections, and one to promote their business.
It also displays the things you like, your Facebook friends, and a timeline of all your Facebook activity, such as updates and photos you’ve shared.
Profiles can be public, available for anyone with internet access to look at, only available to your Facebook friends, or available to friends of friends. You decide in your Facebook privacy settings.
As profiles are personal, most people use them to connect with friends and family, and sometimes with their professional network.
Some freelancers choose to have two profiles – one for personal connections, and one to promote their business. If you decide to promote your business using a profile, this is a good way of keeping your personal life separate from your freelance business.
Alternatively, you can segment your friends into lists. This allows you to share personal updates only with personal friends, while professional updates go out to your broader network.
Advantages of Profiles for Freelancers
- You’re given a Profile as default on Facebook. Sign up to Facebook, and you’re ready to go.
- Profiles allow you to send messages to your friends, so they’re ideal for one-to-one contact.
- When a contact accepts you as a friend, that shows a high level of trust.
- If your Profile is public, then anyone can subscribe to your latest updates. This is similar to them liking your Facebook Page, though less intuitive.
- You can pay to promote posts that you share from your Profile.
Disadvantages of Profiles for Freelancers
- Profiles are not designed for business use, which makes them less accessible to your potential clients than a Facebook Page.
- If someone wants to send a message to your inbox, they have to add you as a friend. This is more intimate and personal than simply Liking your Page. You can send messages to non-friends, but these messages get hidden away in a folder called “other”. In my experience, few people know about or check their “other” folder.
- If you only use a Profile, Facebook restricts access to tools you can use to promote your services, such as Facebook Ads.
- Compared to Pages, Profiles provide limited metrics to show engagement levels.
Groups
Groups were Facebook’s first way of enabling like-minded people to get together around a common cause, idea or experience.
Some Groups were tiny, while others amassed thousands of members.
Now, with the launch of Pages to manage large communities, Facebook has redesigned Groups to allow small groups of friends and peers to connect and share ideas and knowledge.
Groups can be open (anyone can join), closed (only those invited can join), or secret (closed groups that only members know about).
While creating your own Group isn’t the best way to promote your freelance business, you can use Groups to stay in touch with clients, brainstorm and share ideas with other freelancers, and network with other businesses and potential clients.
You could also use a Group for market research, by getting together loyal clients or potential prospects to give you honest feedback on your freelance services.
A word of warning for those who create a Facebook Group. Group membership is opt-out rather than opt-in. When you add a new member to your group, they will receive all group updates, whether they want to or not. Chances are, these updates will go to their inbox, which can be annoying. Because of this, only add people who you’re certain want to be part of your group.
Advantages of Groups for Freelancers
- Mass messaging. With Groups, you can send out messages to every member.
- Groups encourage members to participate.
- Group chat. Live chats with group members are useful for discussion, debate and sharing ideas.
- Restricted membership. You choose exactly who you engage with.
Disadvantages of Groups for Freelancers
- Updates go to everyone. You can’t target them to specific Group members.
- Groups are less prominent in search results, so fewer people will find your Group compared to a Page.
- Groups are often very active, or completely dormant. You either fully engage with a Group, or ignore it. It’s not easy to engage with a Group in a limited way, as it is with Pages.
- Like Profiles, Groups offer limited metrics to show the engagement level of members.
Pages
Whenever you choose to like a business, cause, or even a TV show on Facebook, you’re engaging with a Facebook Page.
Pages are the mainstay of Facebook marketing. They’re a way of building a community around your business. Pretty much every business on Facebook has a Page.
A Facebook Page is your professional face on the Internet. People can visit your Page to find out information on your business such as the services you offer, your business history, testimonials, and links to your website.
Your Page also displays any updates you post about your business, and any links, photos or videos you share that your fans might find useful. Optionally, you can allow your fans to post updates to your Page.
When someone clicks Like on your Facebook Page, they become your fan. From then on, updates you post to your Page can appear in their news feed. How often your updates appear in that person’s news feed depends on how engaged they are with your brand. For example, a fan who frequently comments on your posts will see more of your updates in their news feed than a fan who never leaves comments.
Advantages of Pages for Freelancers
- Pages are public, so anyone can find them, and anyone can like them. This makes them ideal if you’re looking to spread your marketing net as wide as possible.
- You can pay to promote your Page using Facebook Ads, and you can target those ads to a specific demographic. You can also pay to target your updates from your Page to your network.
- You’re a business, and people on Facebook expect businesses to have a Page.
- You can choose a vanity URL for your page (facebook.com/youchoose). That’s good for your SEO.
- Pages provide in-depth metrics on audience engagement. You can work out what your audience wants, and do more of it.
Disadvantages of Pages for Freelancers
- You can send messages to your fans using Pages, but these messages are hidden away outside their inbox in the “other” folder. As I mentioned early, not many people know how to find their “other” folder.
- Pages can take more time to manage than a simple Profile, especially if you have an engaged audience of fans.
Profiles, Groups or Pages: Which Should You Choose?
In an ideal world, where you’d have endless time for marketing, then setting up a Profile, a Group and Page for your freelance business would be the best option.
Pages are the best option for almost all freelancers. The only reason you wouldn’t choose a page is that you have a specialist reason to do otherwise.
But seeing as you have neither endless time, nor a blank check marketing budget, you need to make choices.
Here’s what I’d recommend. Pages are the best option for almost all freelancers. The only reason you wouldn’t choose a page is that you have a specialist reason to do otherwise.
For example, a freelance life coach might want to set up a secret group to share resources with their clients. Or if you always get new business through referrals, a Profile would make sense, as it’s easier to send messages and build connections through your current network.
However, for most freelancers who want to use Facebook to pull more prospects into their sales funnel, to raise awareness of their brand, and to build trust, Pages are the way to go.
I’m interested to know if you already use Facebook to market your freelance business, do you use a Profile, a Group or a Page?
Leave a Comment
That’s a really useful article thanks for posting! I have just set up a facebook page as a freelance designer and it has taken me a long time to do this as I wasn’t sure of the best way. Thankfully, after reading this article I realise I have made the right choice with a page! Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/LoveGraphicDesigns any feedback is appreciated, I’m still learning!
Looks good! As your audience grows, start thinking about what they’d like you to share. A good ratio is that for every 10 updates you post, 9 should help your readers/fans, and one should be self-promotional.
Great work on your About page.
Great article! Social networks are providing several options and the author did a great job of breaking down the pros/cons of profiles/pages/groups on facebook.
I have been using a profile for my freelance company for the last year or so. i found it handy being able to send friend requests to promoters as at the time we were targeting nightclubs and event organizers for print design products.
i also found it really handy being able to send a welcome message to new friends with info on what we do and links to our website.
but…. i am now thinking a page might be better
Scott, it sounds as though you do much of your marketing through networking, so a profile is a good option. You might also want to consider LinkedIn.
Yes David i do all of my marketing through networking, it makes sense to as its absolutely free.
I find the major downside with having a Facebook profile is the amount of spam that comes with it!
I have 1168 “friends” on my profile, of which maybe 30-40 people have ended up as clients. but everyday I receive 100′s of requests for event/game/causes etc. not to mention the groups i get added to lol.
the part of Facebook profile that i have found useful (Facebook frowns heavily on it though, you may get your account activity’s withheld for up-to 30 days)…..
if you join groups as a profile, there are a few apps that can be used to post a link on to every group page that you have joined, just by clicking a button.
For me i think it worked out that the potential number of people that would have access to my post was around the 900,000 mark!!!!!
You read my mind with LinkedIn David, it is on my to-do list for today after client work
PS…
i had my account frozen for 30 days a few months ago, meaning that i could not post on pages, groups, message people who are not friends, send friend requests, receive requests.
this happened when i chose to post on the wall of every group plus every page i have “liked”. I instantly received a message from Facebook stating that I am going too fast to possibly be human lol.
but i have been using the post to group method regularly for the last year, as the app now does 25 at a time.
Hey Scott, what are some of those apps, do you have links or names of the ones you prefer handy?
try this one Eric: http://www.hexcolor.in/tools/multipost/#.T9Wn9rBYuOs
I find that my professional facebook page is super useful in entertaining people. I have to appeal to both a client audience and a n audience of fellow web design nerds. There is a fine line I have to walk with what I post. I tend to post funny cartoons that both a client and web designer would find funny. I also use it to announce web design launches and just tell everyone to have a happy holiday
https://www.facebook.com/ravenousravendesign
I haven’t used Facebook to really market my freelance work…unless you count my music. I guess you can consider playing music for money freelance work.
i prefer page,more
btw thanks for the article
Great article.
I prefer Pages. Can create ads to increase fans, they can get the updates and I have a list of audience who like my business. and may be they can change as leads any time
Loved this article, very helpful !
How often should a Freelance Graphic Designer post on their facebook page, and should it always be about design ?
Great article. I use pages for my various freelance ventures. It keeps everything neat and separate.
This is kind of amazing actually as I went to bed ast night thinking about this exact question and woke with the same question this morning, on checking my email first this morning, you have actually answered my question almost before I even asked it.
Anyway as a producer/production manager for CBPCreative wanting to create a following for my work, my quandary was this question, now you have helped me immensely and quickly in choosing a ‘page’ that is my best option, thank you so much, that was so easy!
It’s probably worth reading section 4 of Facebook’s terms – http://www.facebook.com/legal/terms – where it states that having more than one personal account and using your timeline for commercial gain (i.e. business purposes) are both disallowed.
I know a few businesses who have had their personal profiles closed without being given the chance to convert to a page, losing hundreds, and in one case over 3,000 contacts in the process. Is it worth the risk?
That’s a very good point Martin,
it happened to someone i know who was using it to promote events. She had maxed out the friend limit, and would send invites to her whole friend lists. Facebook cottoned on to her when she tried to change the name of her profile and shut it down.
i might have to look into switching to a page, knowing my luck ill be next on the shut down list.
Spot on Martin! Duplicate accounts can be close without notice, although facebook will often try to offer the user to convert the account into a page.
Recently there was a big stir when facebook deleted hundreds of cosplay account that utilized facebook accounts to showcase the identity of their fictitious characters. Another note is that against current facebook policy, even Mark Zuckerberg has an account for his dog.
I’m really glad I came across this article. I actually tweeted to my design friends the other day about this same exact debate. Whether or not they prefer personal or pages on facebook.
After reading this and having my thoughts justified, i think it’s safe to say that I’m going with a pages for my design work/freelance life.
I’ve been designing for quite some time now but never really wanted to have a Facebook dedicated to it. I guess it wouldn’t hurt.
Great article!
Btw i use Facebook Page to promote my Royalty Free Music, but i still have a problem about the content i should post, and how to catch the right audiences.
Until now, i just posted link to my new item only, i dont have any idea what kind of content should i post beside that? and since i work in music, should i post only about music?
And for the audiences, at first i just link my page to my close friends, then they shared it to their profile, and managed to increase the number of ‘like’. But now im wondering, these people is just liking my page without knowing any idea what they’re liked. They just liked my page because of the friend suggestion on their profile.
So i think i still haven’t catch the right audiences. What should i do or where should i promote my page links to catch the right audiences?
As for now i already put my link to some community page / forums. But maybe you guys here have any more suggestion about it.
Thank you very much
“If someone wants to send a message to your inbox, they have to add you as a friend.”
This is incorrect. By default, anyone can send you a message through Facebook. You can change this in your privacy settings, but most people do not.
My apologies, I missed your caveat about the “other” portion of the inbox. I’d be curious to see data on how many people indeed check this. In my experience, the majority of non-friends I send messages to respond.
I’m so glad I read this David! Thank you.
There’s one thing, however, for which I haven’t found an answer – and I have looked everywhere…
Q: Can we use the chat feature on a Page or a similar app?
Even though everything I have read and seen points towards setting up a Page – if you have a (freeelance) business – I would love to see an option on a Business Page that allows you to connect with some of the people through chat so that you can answer to questions etc. Is there such as App that you can incorporate?
Listen to this:
I have recently came across a FB Profile of a brilliant woman who’s into Marketing/Social Media and also a speaker. She has a Profile and not a Page.
It got me thinking.
What do you think?
Your feedback would be truly appreciated – and it’s much needed –