There is a massive rush to create profiles on social networking sites in order to kick off marketing in Web 2.0. But before you join the rush, you need to learn about certain technical elements about establishing online presence on Facebook. Taking out time to identify the difference between a Facebook business page and the Facebook personal profile, will save you needless frustration.

Face book has developed to the degree of accommodating individual profiles as well as Business Pages. The current redesign of Facebook clearly spells out the difference between profiles and pages. It is simple; profiles are strictly made for individuals, while pages are for businesses. The features of profiles and pages differ. Actually, some features are no longer allowed to be part of the business pages, but are applicable to individual profiles.

Some core changes discovered are listed below;

• Businesses are NOT allowed to create profile, only Pages. If you open a profile page as a business, you are violating TOS

• Other users can become fans via business pages; on the other hand, there is limited access to the individual profile pages

• With business pages, there is no feature for inviting friends; actually, business pages cannot keep friends list, but they can keep a fan list. Friends List feature is disabled on business pages

• Status updates are allowed with business pages, which can be shared with fans

• Several interactive elements such as videos, images, application, discussion board, groups as well as wall posts are allowed in Business Pages.

The Essence of Facebook profiles is to represent an individual. Regardless of the type of organization; all organizations are not allowed to keep an account under the organization’s name. Facebook Pages have been created solely to enable organizations establish a presence on Facebook. Business Pages are optimized to help organizations communicate, engage fans, disseminate content/information and also lay hold of new audiences virally via the recommendations that their fans make about them to their friends. Facebook Business Pages are structured to be media-rich and offer quality presence for any business, brand or artist.

Therefore, creating a profile for your brand or business would automatically lead to suspension of your account for violating Facebook Terms of Use.

This is the policy term given by Facebook on the use of pages by businesses:

Every feature that is personal like messaging and befriending are ONLY for personal use and are not permitted to be used for professional promotion purposes. Here’s an instance, if a user is added as friend, invitation to be a friend would be for your profile rather than your Page. Anything contrary may lead to account suspension or at least warning at first.

Now that you have very valuable information on how these things work, nothing stops you from opening your account.