Facebook Personal Page vs Business PageWe were recently contacted by a local business owner seeking our help after receiving notification from Facebook that they were using their Facebook personal page to promote a business.

Using a Facebook Personal Page vs Business Page to market any product or service is a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Service (Section 4.4) that the business agreed to when they set up their personal profile.

The following is what the business owner received from Facebook who was using a personal page to promote their business.

According to our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, Facebook accounts represent individual people only. It’s a violation of these guidelines to use a personal account to represent a brand, business, group or organization. Personal accounts representing pets, ideas or other objects are also prohibited. Your account could be disabled for violating these guidelines.

If you want to continue to represent your brand, business, group or organization on Facebook, you should convert this account to a Facebook Page. During this process, your account’s existing friends will become people who like your Page, and you’ll receive a business account to log in and manage your Page and ad campaigns.

To learn more about the conversion process, visit the Facebook Help Page: Converting Your Timeline Into a Facebook Page

When you’re ready to convert your personal account to a Page, click on this link and follow the instructions.

If you already have a personal account, you can choose to add it as an admin of your new Page and then deactivate the newly created business account. Please note that maintaining multiple personal accounts is a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, and violations of this rule could result in all your accounts being disabled.

We’ve temporarily reactivated your noncompliant account so you can take the appropriate steps to convert it to a Facebook Page or deactivate it.

You can learn more about our policies by reviewing the Facebook Community Standards.

We’re sorry for any inconvenience and appreciate your help moving your information to a Page.

The easiest way to find out of you are using a personal profile vs. a business page is easy, people can “friend” your personal profile or they can “like” your business page. If your page has “friends”, it is a personal profile. If you are using that page for any business purpose, you are subject to receiving the same notification from Facebook and are subject to having all your Facebook information permanently removed!

If you are currently use a profile page to promote your business, we can help you convert your profile page to a business page. Please contact us for more information.