Facebook can be one of the most powerful social marketing tools of our time. With a user base of roughly 7.5% the world population, Facebook is the second most popular website on the Internet. Therefore, more and more businesses understand the need of having a presence in the online world and sign up for Facebook accounts to interact with their customers and prospects. However, many of these will make the mistake of setting up a, personal account and miss the full benefits a business account comes with. This post will outline several of the benefits a business Facebook account has over a personal one.

Research your demographics

There are about 450 million Facebook users and that number grows every day. If you are selling a generic, general audience product then the figure would suit you just fine, but what if your business deals in a more narrow niche? How many, let’s say, Canadian males between 25 and 30 are there on Facebook? And how many of them are interested in used cars? Or dating? Facebook business accounts come with demographics research tools.

Customize your landing page

Landing page on Facebook business accounts is set to ‘Wall’ by default. No matter how witty and interesting your posts are, all Facebook walls look the same. Business accounts allow you to create a personalized tab and set this one as the default page users see when they first visit your profile.  Editor’s Note: Facebook has recently limited this feature to only high profile accounts

Review your analytics

Personal Facebook accounts don’t allow you to set up any third party analytics tracking, nor offer some system of their own. With Business accounts, you can see detailed statistics on your visitors: age groups, languages spoken, interests and, probably most important, how they are interacting with your content. You can see the number of times your articles have been read and the click-through rates.

Make use of vanity URL’s

If you already own a personal Facebook account, you know that your profile URL is something in the line of facebook.com/profile.php?id=xyz. A business account allows you to define URL’s like facebook.com/YourBusinessName, which helps with branding and also search engine optimization: Facebook URL’s rank quite high for a business name query, you are almost guaranteed a spot on the front page only by setting up a business account. Editor’s Note: You must have a minimum of 25 likes in order to be able to select a vanity URL.

Appear professional

Business accounts are for businesses, personal accounts for people. Don’t mix them. People will want to read the latest news from Bob’s Auto Shop and not Bob Smith, even though this certain Bob owns an auto store. Communicating with your clients from a personal account will make things a little awkward, not to mention you will look silly and unprofessional since you didn’t take the time and few extra clicks to sign up for a business account.

As an exception, you could use a personal account to socialize with customers if you don’t represent the business directly or your name is more a brand than the business. For instance, it’s alright to use a personal account for business purposes if you are a sales representative for a company, a freelancer or a well known individual who operates one or more venues.