Should you Have a Professional and Personal Facebook Page?

(Note – this originally ran on CPATechViews.com)

Recently, this question has popped up more than usual. Should an accountant have two Facebook pages – one for professional reasons and one for friends and family?

My advice is simple: If your Facebook page is more personal than professional – and the “personal” is intended only for close friends and family – you’ll want two pages. Unfortunately, few of us have time to manage two accounts.

The better way to go is to have a corporate Facebook page that represents your firm or company. Instead of the page serving as the professional side of “you,” it’s more a reflection of the business itself. Realize, however, that you’ll need a personal Facebook page before you can set up a corporate page. The corporate page has to be tied to a personal account.

Corporate pages are great because the firm can showcase all sorts of news. The trick is marketing the page so you can attract clients, friends of the firm and others to “like” the page. Previously, this was known as becoming a “fan.”

There are many examples of accounting firm pages on Facebook. Of course, most everyone wants to know what the ROI (return on investment) is for a Facebook page. It may still be too early in the social media realm to know the answer to this unless a prospect or client tells you he or she found you based on your Facebook page.