You Shouldn’t Have More Than One Facebook Profile
Wondering why you shouldn’t have more than one Facebook profile? We break down all the reasons and offer solutions in this post.
You should only have one Facebook profile.
Trust me, I get the allure of having multiple profiles for your personal use.
You can have one that’s family-approved, where your mom and Aunt Cindy can comment how much they love you all day every day. And another that is coworker- and boss-appropriate. And, of course, your “real” one, where you get to talk politics or make bold jokes or even share more personal information you don’t want your family or coworkers knowing.
Unfortunately, you can’t—and shouldn’t—have more than one Facebook profile for a lot of reasons. (Not just because it goes against Facebook’s terms of service. )
In this article, we discuss why you shouldn’t have more than one Facebook profile for personal or business use. We’ll also look at what your options are to get the segmentation you want instead.
Because It Goes Against Facebook’s Terms of Service
This is easily the biggest and most important reason why you shouldn’t be having multiple Facebook accounts, especially if one or more are under a fake name: It’s against Facebook’s rules.
You are not allowed to have more than one personal account, and the account must be under your real name. This means you can use a nickname if it’s what people actually call you, but it has to be what people call you in real life and you must use your legal last name. (Please take this seriously: If you use a fake name and someone reports you, Facebook will reach out asking for identification with that name. If you don’t have it, you could get shut down. )
If anyone reports a duplicate profile of yours (even if they find it accidentally and think that someone is trying to hack you), you could run the risk of having all of your profiles shut down.
This isn’t worth it.
We put a lot of time and effort into cultivating our online profiles from accruing friends to sharing great content, and you don’t want to lose it all unexpectedly.
Solution
Just don’t do it.
You know what’s worse than only having to have one Facebook account? Having no account.
Because People Can Still Find Those Accounts
One of the most common reasons that someone wants to have multiple Facebook accounts is the scenario we addressed in the introduction: They want to cleanly segment off their life in nice, neat (and separate) Facebook profiles.
Though that concept makes sense, unfortunately, it doesn’t work. Aside from the fact that it goes against Facebook’s terms of service, there are also a bunch of potential pitfalls here.
First, people can still find you on Facebook, even if you’re already friends with them on another account. If they search for your phone number or an email address, that new account may come up. It’s also common for people who have linked their email accounts and phone numbers to their profiles to see your “secret” profile pop up, and even if you’re using a fake name, they can still recognize you.
Even if you’ve made it so that your account can’t be found through search, there’s still the chance that someone finds you on accident when idly clicking around on Facebook.
We all do this when we’re bored … We see a person we think we recognize and check out their profile. Your mom somehow could come across your best friend’s Facebook, which is unfortunately public, and click just out of curiosity… and that’s how she finds your second account.
If you want to keep certain content from certain groups of people on your Facebook, simply adjust your privacy settings.
Before posting, you can adjust the privacy of each individual post, so it only shows to certain groups of people or that it specifically excludes certain people. You can change these groups and who is in them for each post as needed.
Because Once It’s Online, It’s Not Private Anymore
Another common reason why people decide that they need a second or third profile: They want to keep some of their information “private” from different groups.
Aside from the fact that the above fix solves this problem, there’s another major issue with this reason. Once something is online, it’s not private anymore.
Yes, even if you trust your friends, and yes, even if you lock your profile down with privacy constraints.
Let’s say you were to let a coworker into your “personal” account because you get along so well at work, and you posted something that went against the company’s social media rules. That coworker could take a screenshot and share it with your boss, so now even though your boss never had access, your boss suddenly does. And fires you.
I’ve actually seen so many renditions of this happen over the past 10 years! It astonishes me that people still think they can get away with this. (In my high school, one person bragged openly about cheating by stealing test answers from the teacher’s desk. Someone spilled the beans, and the school expelled the cheater. )
I’ve also seen people create separate profiles to talk smack about their families, certain friends, and/or their jobs. All it takes is one petty person who doesn’t like you quite as much as you think (or who likes the other parties more) to screenshot and blow things up.
Don’t be a jerk online, and don’t post anything that you don’t want other people to find out about.
You deserve a right to privacy overall … (And I definitely don’t want a not-so-great ex being able to see anything about me, for example. ) But remember that whatever you post online can be screenshotted and shared in seconds. So, refrain from posting anything that could land you in hot water.
Because Businesses Should Never Have Personal Profiles
And now, let’s look at what I consider to be the most innocent reason for having multiple personal profiles: You’ve tried to create one for your personal brand or your business.
Originally, some influencers or industry experts would have a profile for personal use that was hyper-private, and another that was fully public.
If you want to go this route, however, you should be creating a Page for yourself or your business.
Even though I’m a single-member LLC and I pretty much am my business, I still have a dedicated Page for my public brand. (I only keep that Page to run tests and demos for articles, but it still counts).
You can have multiple Pages, which you’d really want to do anyway. It creates a natural and healthy separation for those who want it, so you don’t have people trying to send your personal account friend requests constantly and they can just follow your public Page instead.
Download your FREE Facebook 101 workbook and essential guide.
You also get an abundance of great features that you don’t get with your personal profile, including the following:
In-depth analytics, to see what content your audience responds to and how they’re engaging with it
The ability to track your follower trend
The option to run ad campaigns from your Page and to boost posts for enhanced visibility
Additional “about” sections so that you can elaborate on your business or brand, and direct users to your off-platform sites more easily.
Outstanding features like the option to set up and collect reviews, create an on-platform shop, product tagging, and more
Creating a Facebook group centered around your brand
Features for managing incoming messages, including auto-replies and greetings
So if you have a business or a brand you want to promote separately, create Pages, not profiles. It keeps you from violating Facebook’s terms of service and makes you look more professional while offering a suite of outstanding features.
Creating a Page is exceptionally easy. You can see how to optimize one here.
Conclusion
The emergence of social media has introduced new, complicated social dynamics into our lives. Finding the right ways to balance it all is essential. The tips in this post can help you do exactly that.
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Why Would Someone Have 2 Facebook Accounts? – Social …
Why Would Someone Have 2 Facebook Accounts? | Social Tradia
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f you’ve ever come across someone’s “secondary profile”, you might be wondering why someone has more than one Facebook account. While the automatic response often leads down the “they’re probably hiding something…” route, that might not always be the case.
So why would someone have 2 Facebook accounts? Some could be working with an alias to creep away on profiles undetected, but they could also have an entirely reasonable explanation for creating a second profile. We’ll explore this question in the article below.
Clawing Back a Little Privacy
Unless you’re living an off-grid, the days of total privacy are long gone. If you’re online, people can find you — and social media profiles are the quickest route. Facebook has little to no filters when creating an account. There’s no identification process, no face recognition, and only a very short “security” confirmation, meaning it’s open for almost anyone to use.
Companies no longer just take CVs and references into account when deciding if you’re a good fit. Most will Google you to find out what kind of person you are, and unless you’re a celebrity or have done some incredible things with your career already, chances are the first thing they find is your Facebook profile.
That reason alone answers why would someone have 2 Facebook accounts: one personal, one professional. Recent graduates often don’t want potential new bosses having photo evidence of their illegal raves or risque dress costumes. So yes, someone could be using their second profile for living a double life, but more often than not, people simply like to keep business and pleasure separate. That said, it’s often hard to keep a work/life balance in the real world — let alone the digital one as well.
The Tactical Approach
There are also more tactical reasons for those who are digital-savvy. When Facebook games were all the rage — think Candycrush and Farmville — you needed to invite other users to level up. But if you’re a little shy about your new-found addiction, you can easily create new profiles and use those instead of real people to play.
Other than that, you might have a genuinely diverse group of friends. Maybe you’re regularly meeting new people at events and clubs, or your school friends have very different interests from your new circle. One set of people might not be interested in the spiritual ins and outs of your yoga journey but would love to see pictures of your new puppy. Tailoring your content between a few profiles is a great way to keep your audience engaged, but it’s easy to see how things can get complicated.
But Is It Even Possible?
This depends. Facebook clearly stipulates that “It’s against the Facebook Community Standards to maintain more than one personal account, ” and being found out (which you most likely will be) could cause all of your accounts to be shut down. Aside from the legalities, is it possible? And that answer is a definite yes.
Hypothetically, if you want multiple profiles, all you need is a slight name change (e. g. your full name on one account and a nickname on another) and a separate email address for each. That said, the Facebook giants can easily link those accounts, so you’ll also need to use a different IP address when creating each profile. And it’s as simple as that!
Roundup
So back to the question at hand — there are many reasons why one might have 2 Facebook profiles. Aside from the one-offs like forgetting your login details, they all lead to the same answer — the user may want to hide something. And in today’s digital world where you can find information on just about everyone, wanting a little privacy isn’t a crime.
5 Reasons Why You Should NOT Have 2 Facebook Accounts
Like many people, I was concerned about my privacy and identity on Facebook. My husband, a very private person, did not feel comfortable with me sharing pictures of him and the children on Facebook if I was going to be “friends” with people I don’t know very well. Yet, I wanted to use Facebook for professional networks and to reach out to people on a personal level. I felt at the time the only solution would be to create 2 accounts. A professional profile and personal profile. WRONG!
ARE YOU A FACEBOOK GANGSTER?
If you have two accounts, did you know you are breaking Facebook’s rules?
In its terms and conditions, Facebook clearly states that it only wants you to create one account, so by having two, you are breaching the agreement. By rights, Facebook could close or suspend your accounts. Or if someone has a vendetta, they can report you.
THE GOLDEN CHILD & THE NEGLECTED ONE
It takes real skill to be able to juggle two accounts. How do you come up with enough content for both? Do you have the energy or time to be logging on and off both accounts, especially if you have important news you want to share on both? Something’s going to give, one of those babies is going to get neglected. Which one is it going to be? Your personal identity or your professional one? It’s hard enough finding work/life balance in the real world let alone on Facebook.
IT’S ALL ABOUT ME, ME, ME!
Facebook can be a wonderful tool for professional relationships. It provides the perfect platform to:
build rapport
gain trust
share knowledge
be authentic
demonstrate your expertise
strengthen connections
When you have two accounts, are you really being sincere? Clearly there are already two sides to you.
People tend to use their professional account to self-promote, to plug their business yet don’t use it to its full potential by engaging with others. The power is in connecting, commenting, discussing and sharing.
WHO IS A TRUE FRIEND?
There are going to be situations when you develop friendships with people you are associated to professionally. If they’re already “friends” with your professional profile, you are then faced with the situation of saying “I have another identity”. It demonstrates that you are hiding a part of yourself from the real world. Yet, without restrictions or controls on your Facebook account, you invite people into the entire arena of your personal world. There’s not grey areas, simply in or out, black or white. Facebook has dynamic methods for you to be able to control what people see. Additionally, there are settings within Facebook that allow you to monitor tagging and posts on your timeline before they go public.
ARE YOU ONLY DEFINED BY TWO SUBJECTS?
If you have two accounts, you have basically said “Well I only communicate with people on two levels – Professional or Personal. ”
All good businesses have sophisticated databases made up of many groups. The business will communicate with a group based on their interest yet exclude people who don’t need to know certain things. Some people will belong to more than one group. Facebook has the capacity to provide the same level of sophistication.
So why would you restrict yourself to just two modes of communication? Why would you watch only two channels of television when you have 20 to choose from? Facebook gives you a sophisticated method to define, monitor and control who can see what posts you put out. So if need be, you can restrict your posts to a very specific group or market.
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“Facebook Productivity“?
WANT MORE? If you’d like to expand on this and learn how to set up your account to manage just one facebook account Click here.
About the Author:
Barbara Clifford (The Time Tamer) is a time management & stress management enthusiast based in Alice Springs, Australia. She has spent over 20 years working in time precious and stressful industries such as film, hospitality and marketing. She has always had a burning passion for creating order and making sense of things. She is sought after like a beacon in a sea of chaos to provide professional development in the business environment through workshop training, coaching, mentoring, online training programmes, webinars and as a guest speaker around Australia. Her professional experience has included contracts with small business, Not For Profits, Aboriginal Organisations, Media, Marketing, Aged Care, Universities, Health Services and Cruise Ships. Follow Barbara on Twitter @barbclifford.