Understanding Facebook Artist Pages vs. Profiles

CEO Patrick Faucher and his team at artist se rvices provider Nimbit have been creating the tools and infrastructure for indie and d.i.y. artists to build and monetize their fanbases for more than 5 years. Most recently, their Nimbit MyStore direct to fan Facebook sales widget surpassed 2800 artist users including the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and London Symphony Orchestra. 

Alongside the technology, Nimbit is adding a series of tutorials; and with their permission, Hypebot is publishing this useful overview of Facebook Artists pages and how they differ from the more common Profiles.

What is a Facebook Artist Page?

How it differs from a Facebook Group or Profile

Yes it's true. Facebook is a great place to be for a musician. But how do you get started? Do you make a group, a profile, or a page? What's the difference anyway? There are three types of pages you can create on Facebook:

• Profiles are for personal use and represent the individual user controlling it. The easiest way to create any of the other types of pages is to create a profile first and control the others from here.
• Groups were created to bring Facebook users together that had similar interests.
• Pages are created to represent businesses, Artists, public figures etc. This is where your home base should be as an artist.

Advantages of an Artist Page -

Some of you may have been running both your musical career and your personal life off from your Facebook profile. This may not be the best idea.  Would you run your business out of a small house if you had access to a free state of the art office building? We didn't think so.

• No Limit to your fan base: Unlike your profile, which is limited to a maximum of 5,000 fans, with an Artist Page you're able to have as many fans as you want.  Michael Jackson has over 10 million fans on a fan page created in his honor.
• No barrier to entry: To connect with you on your (personal) profile, fans have to ask you to become your "friend", where as on an artist page they can choose to become a fan on their own accord.
• Viewable outside Facebook: Your artist page is viewable for users who aren't signed up with Facebook, your profile is not.
• Viral growth: In addition they're able to suggest the page to all of their friends with a few clicks of a button.

What if you already have a Facebook group or profile?

Maybe you've added a bunch of your fans to your personal profile or group, but you want to get started with your new artist page. The best way to bring your friends who are already "friends" on your profile is to click the "Suggest to Friends" button located under your page's photo. If you're trying to bring people from a group, send a direct message out to all of the group members with a link to your new page.