When advising authors on Facebook, one of the first things I encourage them to do is migrate their Facebook profile into a fan page. What migration essentially does is convert their current friends into fans. Those new to Facebook are happy to do this, but those who are committed Facebookers are always hesitant. They don’t want to “lose” their friends and the ability to interact with them. I completely understand their concern.
If you fall into the latter category, you need to ask yourself “How many of those 100+ or 500+ friends would I invite over for dinner?” The answer is normally around 25. Now, write down their names and save that list-you’ll need that later.
Now, I promise you there is no need to worry! The reasons to migrate from a Facebook profile to a Facebook fan page are simple:
1) No limit on # of fans. Many authors don’t know this, but Facebook has set a limit to the amount of friends you can have. This limit is 5,000. If you really want to grow a fan base you have to migrate.
2) Custom Facebook Tabs. Migrating to a page gives you the ability to create a designed landing tab, which is essentially an interactive web page built into the Facebook platform. Creating a designed landing tab involves design work and coding. It is a lot like creating a website and we work with our clients on creating custom tabs for them. Here are some examples: DeVon Franklin , Dina Bennett, Larry Doyle, Karen Bergreen, Lucia Greenhouse.
3) Facebook Advertising. You gain the ability to advertise with fan pages, which is very effective in growing a fanbase and also pushing people to buy your book. We had a lot of success with running ads for DeVon Franklin generating 693,270 impressions and 2,063 new likes during a 4 month campaign with an ad budget of under $300.00. After his campaign ended the following month his new likes decreased 57%.
Convinced yet? The point is, if you don’t migrate your profile into a page you’re setting yourself up for a missed opportunity and the ability to reach an even wider audience. Yes, by migrating you’ll loose the ability to send private messages to friends and the ability to post on friends walls, but what you gain from a marketing standpoint makes the migration more than worth it.
Now, remember those 25 names you wrote down earlier? Guess what? You can still be “friends” with them on Facebook and send them private messages and post to their wall. All you need to do is create a new Facebook profile account-under a new email address-once you’ve migrated your page and invite your them as your friend. Just make sure you set your privacy settings high as you’ll want your “fans” to “like” your fan page, not send you “friend” request.
Now go forth and migrate! Just make sure to follow these directions via Mashable and remember to download your Facebook data before migrating.