You may be considering making either a fan page or a group for your business on Facebook. You may have heard of other businesses having success with a Facebook page and you want to experience this same success. There are many benefits to having your business on Facebook. Here are some things you'll want to avoid so you do not experience any disadvantages from being on Facebook:
If you do not do it right, it could hurt your image. A poor Facebook page for your business is worse than not having one at all. So if you are thinking of making a Facebook page, make sure you do it right. Do not just spend a few minutes on it by creating it, and then leaving it alone. You need to tend to it for at least a few days, and make sure that it provides a good experience to the user. If you business has a blog, you'll want to set it up so that your blog posts go right to your Facebook page's wall so that there will always be some new information for people to read. Update as much information as you can, including your business hours so that people know you're a real entity and not some scammer with a Facebook page.
Consider your demographic. If you cater mostly to baby boomers they are not going to care too much that your business has its own Facebook page. It's not going to make them want to do business with you any more or any less than they already do. They'll likely find your site through other means than through Facebook. If you cater to pre-teens, teens, and twenty and thirty somethings you definitely need to have some presence on Facebook. If you do not, you run the risk of looking out of touch with your core market.
It can be cannibalistic. If you have a main website that you want be to use, you may find that they never make it there because they're getting all of the information they need from your Facebook page. If you spent a lot of time and money to make your website, and you want people to use it and appreciate it, then you might want to limit how much you put on your Facebook page and just use it as a teaser to get people to click through to your website. Either way, it's still one extra step they have to take to get to your website, and many people might not bother to click through.
There's not too many disadvantages to having a Facebook page, as long as you follow the advice in this article and do it the right way. The only thing it can do is potentially give you more visitors, and it provides another avenue for people to get to know more about you and your business.