Separation of Fan and Friend

I have a bone to pick with fellow Facebook users.

There are two types of Facebook pages you can create. You can create a personal page that you use to tell your “friends” the mundane details of your life, or you can create a business page that you use to promote whatever service or product you’re trying to sell to your “fans”.

A handful of my friends also have small business fan pages. In most cases, when the friend created the personal business page they asked all of their Facebook friends to become a fan by “liking” their page. In most cases I did because I’m a supportive friend. Now I find myself wondering why I wasted that very valuable thirty seconds of my life.

It annoys me to no end when you post some sort of advertisement on your small business page, and then turn around and immediately post the exact same thing on your personal page. If I can get the same annoying product/service pushing from your personal page, then what was the point of asking me to like your business page? You might argue that you want the friends that don’t “like” your business page to see what your advertisements. But you know what, if they never became a fan of your business page in the first place then I think it’s a pretty safe bet to say that they don’t care. This is a sure fire way to lose friends and fans.

There is another side to this, too. There are also small business pages that fail to realize that it’s a BUSINESS. I am a “fan” (using the term loosely because I’m not really a fan) of one particular page that is very popular. The girl has over 10,000 fans, which is actually pretty impressive for a small business. On this particular page, on almost a weekly basis, the girl uses her status update to air some dirty laundry drama. Sometimes its business related drama (which is still incredibly unprofessional to share), but sometimes it’s just her daily redneck drama. Every time it happens I have to stop myself from telling her what an immature, unprofessional, moron she is. I honestly can’t believe she has managed to hold onto so many fans. She’s one redneck rant away from losing me.

So to recap, if you have two separate Facebook pages, please use them as such and stop flooding my feed with repeat nonsense. If you only have one page, please try to remember which type it is and use it appropriately. Nobody likes an unprofessional business owner.