When to Use a Facebook Local Business Page Vs a Company Page

Facebook will offer you several options when you set up a page for your organisation. Usually, though, you’ll find yourself choosing between a ‘Company, organisation or Institution’ page, and a ‘Local Business or Place’ one. While in some cases the choice is obvious – if you’re a university, you’ll be wanting to be an Institution, not a Local Business or Place – for other organisations the decision can be a little more complex.

When to Choose a Local business or Place Listing

The best guide is to try to see yourself through the eyes of your customer base. How do your customers see you? If they physically visit a place of business, whether that’s a church, a concert hall or a workshop, then you should probably choose to be a Local Business or Place.

When to Choose a Company, Organisation or Institution

If your customers don’t physically visit your place of business, or id they visit a different place each time – if you’re an events co-ordinator or party planner, for instance – it might be better to go with being a Company, organisation or Institution.

Each page type will let you enter Basic Info, Detailed Info and Contact Info. However – and Facebook doesn’t tell you this – the content of these sections differs by page type. Once you choose a page type, you will only be able to enter the information allowed by that page type.

Options Available to Local Business or Place Listings

If you choose a Local Business or Place page, then the only Basic Info you can enter is ‘About’. The Detailed Info section (all optional) will offer fields for:

• ‘Website,’
• ‘Address,’
• ‘City/Town,’
• ‘Zip,’
• ‘Opening Hours,’
• ‘Description,’
• ‘Price Range,’ and
• ‘Parking.’

If you leave a field blank, it won’t show up on your Facebook page.

Options Available to Organisation or Company Listings

By contrast, a Company, organisation or Institution page has more options.

Basic Info includes fields for:

• ‘Founded,’
• ‘Address,’
• ‘City/Town,’
• ‘Zip’ (Postal Code)

That means a lot of what’s Detailed Info for a Local Business or Place page is Basic Info for a Company, organisation or Institution page.
That leaves the way clear for Detailed Info like:

• ‘Website,’
• ‘Mission,’
• ‘Description,’
• ‘Products,’
• ‘Awards.’

The Contact Info section will also let you put a brief ‘About’ piece in as well as Email, Phone and Website fields like the Local Business or Place page.

It’s obvious that the Local Business or Place page is designed for customers who might ‘check-in’ to the store and buy something: they need to know the price range, what the parking is like and the hours you’re open.

A Company, organisation or Institution page is tailored to organisations with a larger reach and scale, and there’s less ‘where do I park the car,’ and more options to describe your performance and identity as a company. It’s important to ensure that you select the page that best represents your company’s interests: imagine Nike going with Local Business or Place? If you have no physical retail outlet, or you have several, or the majority of your sales activity takes place online, the best page for you might be the Company, organisation or Institution, but if you rely on local customers at a physical location, Local Business or Place might be the ticket.

For companies with numerous branches spread across the country that customers visit, it might be worth having a Company Page and then setting up Facebook Places locations for Check-Ins using these instructions.

What kind of business do you own or manage?

Do you need help in deciding?

Leave a comment below if you do.

About the author: Kunle Campbell

An ecommerce advisor to ambitious, agile online retailers and funded ecommerce startups seeking exponentially sales growth through scalable customer acquisition, retention, conversion optimisation, product/market fit optimisation and customer referrals.

Follow @https://twitter.com/kunletcampbell