LinkedIn Compay Page Versus Facebook Business Page? Which is right for your business?

Making a choice between using a LinkedIn Company Page or a Facebook Business Page to market your business, product, or service depends on what you want to get out of the page and what amount of time you can devote to working the page. Working the page means updating, editing, posting, LIKE, etc.

LinkedIn and Facebook both have their advantages and disadvantages. The choice of using one in preference to another depends on what you are selling or promoting, what you know about your market (demographics, target, etc.), your expectations of business life span, and what other functions you will use this page for.

LinkedIn Company Pages and Facebook Business Pages differ in audience size.  As of February 2012, Facebook has 845 million active users and LinkedIn has .  I did find one interesting statistic

LinkedIn has more than 2 million companies with LinkedIn Company Pages.

If you want the opportunity to market to the entire population of many countries  a Facebook Fan Page properly developed, advertised, and promoted will usually result in more visits.  The Facebook Business Page has the advantage of being very useful for selling products or services that have a short shelf life – will not be on the market long – because the fan page format is easy to change and remove when not needed.

LinkedIn Company Pages have the advantage of being able to direct your offering to a selected in the know group of people who are already savvy to what you are selling or what your company does. Selling to people who know your company or product is usually an easier sell and a faster sell.

The specificity offered by LinkedIn Company Pages outdoes Facebook’s Fan Page. Facebook’s Fan Page can be limited in who views the page but that requires you to have already made that person or company a friend. Linked In Company Pages has the advantage of being able to directly contact people in the same business or market through highly specific groups and group discussions that already exist at Linked In.

If your LinkedIn Company Page is a reflection of your corporate web site you have a hiring advantage when you need new employees. LinkedIn allows you the convenience of selecting potential new hires from a verifiable set of competent candidates with documentation. A Facebook Fan Page cannot offer you the same high level of potential employees as LinkedIn can.

The choice is yours.  For me, I chose both.

You can visit the Upstream Marketing LinkedIn Company age by clicking Upstream Marketing LinkedIn

The Upstream Marketing Facebook page is still in beta but you can visit it by clicking Upstream Marketing Facebook