With over 300 million active users Facebook is the worlds leading social network, and has even ranked higher then Google as the world most visited website at times over the past twelve months.
The chances are that you are a member of Facebook, and as such you have a profile on the social network. Many museums also have a presence on Facebook, these aren’t profiles as you as an individual might have, but a Facebook page (something which is sometimes also referred to as a fan page).
Facebook groups v fan pages
Facebook allows you to set up two kinds of pages for your museum, either a group or a fan page. While the difference between the two may not seems obvious until you join the website, a museum will be better served by a fan page.
To view a group you need to become a member of Facebook, but anyone can view a fan page without logging into the website. This makes a museum choosing to set up a fan page more visible than one choosing to set up a group.
Secondly, if you send out any invitations or emails from a group, they actually come from the administrator of that group (complete with your picture), rather than the museum. If you instead choose to use a fan page then whatever you send to your fans will come from the museum.
Thirdly, a group is limited to 5,000 people whilst a fan page can have as many fans as you like.
Getting started with Facebook pages
To create a fan page you will need to be a member of Facebook. Once you have logged in scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Advertising. Then click pages and then Create a Page.
Select the Museum choice of categories and enter the name of your Museum before clicking to create your page (be careful doing this as you can’t change it after you have selected a name for your fan page). You are given the option of keeping the page private, and I’d suggest that you do this until you have added content in to your page.
Related Posts:
Facebook for a Museum (part 2) – Creating a great looking fan page
Facebook for a Museum (part 3) – Creating engaging content
Facebook for a Museum (part 4) – How to promote your fan page
Facebook for a Museum (part 5) – Analytics for your fan page
Hi, what’s wrong with http://twitter.com/followamuseum. There’s is a message telling that something weird has happened.
Well, I would like to tell you about http://www.museedelapoupeeparis.com/. I’ve been there three times, two of them with my older daughter. it’s a great museum, with puppets from many countries and has histories from the first dolls.
Congrats,
@zilveti
Mary Jo Zilveti
[...] the past week I have looked at why a museum should set up a Facebook fan page, discussed how you can make this look attractive to potential fans and touched on how to create [...]
Very interesting blog – thanks for the work you’re putting into it…
Re Groups v. Pages – my understanding is that a Page can’t email to Fans, whereas a Group can. Also a Group can create events but not a Page. Gets confusing!