Your clients don’t want to be “friends” with you on Facebook

I hear this more and more: “I don’t need a Facebook business page. I don’t use Facebook for personal stuff, so I just use my profile. That way I also get to know more about the people who follow me.”

So, okay, you don’t like sharing personal things with your own personal friends and family on Facebook. That’s cool; not everyone does. And good for you if you have a lot of “friends” who are interested in your service.

But aren’t you forgetting someone? Aren’t you, in fact, being downright unfriendly towards someone? Forgive me, many, many someones?

Who are they?

People who like your service, but have no desire to share their personal lives with YOU.

You see, not everyone uses Facebook the way you do, and more importantly, you don’t get to dictate their Facebook behavior. It’s really the other way around. They dictate your behavior, because you have to interact with them on their terms or they will find another service provider.

So keep your not-personal-at-all profile if you must, but create a business page as well, for people who want to follow you, communicate with you and share information about you on Facebook on a professional, not personal, level.

P.S. If you are a health-care professional, or anyone else who needs to set boundaries between practitioner and client, you really need to rethink your open-profile policy. You could very well be encouraging an illusion of intimacy that you do not want. You will also very likely encourage patients to ask for medical advice via Facebook. Be friendly, be caring, be helpful…. but be those things through a professional page.