Follow Me on Facebook

Facebook has added a new subscribers feature to personal profiles that indeed indicates they are keeping a close eye on Google+ and Twitter – and borrowing a few ideas as well.

One of the advantages of strengths of Facebook is that it is personal.

Business is now personal. You can no longer separate your business and personal lives.  Actually, you can, but its not something that one would recommend in a business environment that is becoming increasingly social.

On Facebook you could previously only share with friends – your inner circle. However, what if you happen to have something to say that might appeal to a larger audience – such as friends of friends?

For example, I’m looking to fill a few more seats at my 2011 Social Media Summit – a two-day event designed for non-technical small businesses.

Naturally, I’m promoting it through the usual channels.  However, if only I could share the favorable commentary from my trusted Facebook friends with the general public?  Now you can.

This is one reason why I have decided to allow others to subscribe to my personal Facebook profile.  It allows others to learn more about you without having to get too friendly just yet.

The point is you can use Facebook subscriptions to virtually rub shoulders with those that you want to get to know better – just as you would in real life.

Setting Up Facebook Subscriptions

The process for providing others the option to subscribe to your Facebook newsfeed is simple – just go here and set it up.

Then go to Facebook privacy settings and determine what you wish to share publicly – as that is all your subscribers will see.  Then choose if you want to close commenting to subscribers or allow friends of friends to comment.  Presently those are the only two options.

When you subscribe to personal Facebook profiles you will be notified of your mutual friends. Having mutual friends with Robert Scoble enables me to comment on what he shares with the public.

On my professional Facebook Page I allow anyone to comment, and it is rare that I have to delete something.  For that reason, I’ve chosen to allows friends of friend subscribers to comment on my personal page.

You’ll have to decide what works for you.

How Facebook Subscribers Can Work

If you are a blogger you know that hundreds (sometimes thousands) of people view your blog posts in a given day. Yet, only a very small portion of them will make comments.

Comments are social networking gold!  They help you learn more about your community, and they also become social proof that helps you to grow that community.

If you want to attract new followers and friends that could potentially become customers or business partners, you have to leave a few doors open so that you can get to know them better.

That’s how I see this.  Build trust first and let business become a potential by-product of those relationships.

Incidentally, while we are all limited to 5,000 Facebook friends, there is no limit to the number of subscribers we can have.

For clarity, all of your Facebook friends are already subscribers of whatever you choose to share with them (via the privacy settings).

Your other subscribers only have access to what you choose to share publicly.

What This Means for Small Businesses

The most common questions I get related to social media in general relates to personal vs professional profiles on the social web.  My contention is that being personal is good for your business.

My rationale for this is that most small businesses are doing good things that support their local communities. This attracts business because it gives prospects a reason to choose you over your national competitors.

Many of us have been patiently waiting a long time for Facebook to give us the opportunity to be more personal and transparent with the broader communities we serve.

That time has arrived and its now.  When you consider that online search is rapidly moving towards social – taking advantage of Facebook subscriptions is a step in the right direction.

One last thing, because your personal profiles are inside Facebook, the information shared with subscribers stays inside of Facebook.

How about you?  Are you going all in with this like me?

Leave a comment below or share this with your community on with any of the share buttons below – or on the little red bar at the bottom of this page.  

Until tomorrow,  Jeff

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