It’s an excellent question. One I get asked alllll the time.

With 1.86 billion monthly active users, Facebook is an extremely valuable tool for marketing for businesses and creatives. And since we’re introverts we need to make sure we strategically spend our time being social on social media.

Because forget that trying to be everywhere and do everything stuff, that’s exhausting.

The short answer
Everyone should at the very least have a Facebook personal profile for networking, and a business page so their business can be found on Google and so they can do Facebook ads.

Groups are much more time intensive, but they can be very useful. They’re particularly useful for brand owners that would benefit from being seen as a leader, for instance service-based businesses like life coaches, or who sell digital information products like courses or membership sites. Groups can also benefit businesses that would like to create a community around their product and provide attentive customer support.

For instance, Thinkific, the platform that hosts my course all about creating a flourishing Facebook page, has a Facebook group where people celebrate their course launches and sales and ask tech questions about how to do something on the platform.

The main differences between Facebook pages, groups, and personal profiles
Pretty much everyone on Facebook has a personal profile. It’s how you become “Facebook friends” with someone. Facebook profiles are for people.

A Facebook page on the other hand is for a business, organization, celebrity, etc. You can’t become Facebook friends with a page, instead you “Like” a Facebook page.

Posts by Facebook pages are public, whereas posts on your personal profile can be hidden from the public view, if you want. A Facebook group can be set to “Open,” so anyone can see the posts, “Closed,” so that only the people who are accepted into the group can see the posts, or “Secret,” so that the group can’t even be found in Facebook’s search bar and is instead accessed by invitation only.

To answer that, you need to first know your intent (what purpose do you want the page, group, or profile to serve).

The primary purposes of profiles, pages, and groups
Profiles
◦To develop the know, like, and trust factor in an informal setting.
◦To have a better “organic reach.” Reach means the number of people who see your posts. Organic means that you didn’t have to pay for people to see the post. Facebook has code (an algorithm) that determines what order posts get seen in your newsfeed, and the code generally prefers personal posts over page posts.

Pages
◦To establish a legitimacy for your brand (or it may look like you aren’t serious about your business).
◦To be found on Google (most personal profiles don’t show up on Google).
◦To do Facebook advertising.

Groups
◦To be seen as a leader by a group of people.
◦To create a community around your work.

Concentrate on your Facebook personal profile is you want to connect with your potential clients on a personal level. Concentrate on your Facebook page if you want a strong official presence for your brand. 

Concentrate on your Facebook group if you want to create a community around your brand or brand’s topic.

Facebook profile = cultivating connections
Facebook pages = imparting information
Facebook group = creating community

What kind of content works best on each
Personal
◦Images of your day.
◦Good things that happened to you.
◦Accomplishments by your clients.
◦
Strong opinions
◦Conversation starters



Pages
◦Motivational images
◦
Links (often not popular, but establishes you as on top of your niche)
◦SSQs – short simple questions, like “Where in the world are you living?”
◦Videos
◦Facebook Lives



Groups

◦Daily theme questions (“Share your top tips #TopTipThursday,” “Goals Monday”).
◦Valuable Insights
◦
Q&A Live Videos
◦
Posts that show you’re a leader

Top Tips
Pages
Use insights to determine the best day and time to post, and what kind of content (videos, Facebook Lives, text-only, links, images) works best. Create Facebook Lives as Facebook prioritizes that format above other kinds of content. Before you start doing Facebook Ads, ad a pixel to your site, this way you can advertise to people who were interested enough in you to check out your website.

Profiles
Do talk about your accomplishments and your customers’ accomplishments. Don’t only post about your business. For one, people are genuinely interested in what you’re like as a person, and second, Facebook’s terms of service say you shouldn’t use your profile “primarily” for business.

Your own groups
Posting daily themes like “It’s Monday!! Post your goals for the week below” help to jump start conversations
Groups are a place to lead, so don’t worry too much about posting too often. Aim for 1 post a day in addition to your daily theme. Don’t sell your products to the group members every day, but also don’t forget to occasionally sell to the group.

And that’s it! Now it’s time to start showing up powerfully on Facebook and take advantage of the biggest social media site there is.