Facebook Promises Crazy Reach With New Feature

What's Happening 

Facebook quietly launched a feature at the end of 2022 that may rock your social media world.

It’s called Professional Mode.

Facebook is NOT dead

Before you dismiss me out of hand because you’re SO OVER Facebook, I get it. I’ve been over it for years. However, there is a difference between what we’re tired of and what works.

You probably have a case of Facebook Fatigue versus a lack of opportunity on the platform.

I was reminded during a social media conference recently how much of a Goliath Facebook is. Facebook reaches almost 3 billion per month. For perspective, there are about 6 billion people on earth above the age of 15. Thus, HALF of the world logs onto Facebook every month.

Here are the stats of the other major social media platforms for comparison: YouTube – 2.2B, Instagram – 1.4B, TikTok – 1.0B, Snapchat – 750M, Pinterest – 480M, Twitter – 300M.

According to the 2023 Social Media Marketing Industry Report (yet to be released), Facebook is voted as the platform that most improves sales, generates the most leads, and is the most important platform for marketers.

If that’s not enough to convince you, as I wrote here, people are still 2.5 times more likely to choose Facebook as their favorite social platform than they are to choose TikTok. And Facebook is still responsible for more than 70% of all web traffic referrals that originate from social media.

Facebook gets a glow-up

Meta admits, “Facebook isn’t always creators’ primary platform.” The company’s goal this year is to make Facebook the best place for social discovery and sharing.

They have undergone a “massive technological understanding” to recommend content “beyond Reels: photos, text, groups, short- and long-form videos, and more.”

Facebook is also returning to an integrated Messenger inbox versus a separate app.

Translation: Facebook is transitioning its technology to function more like Instagram.

For all of history, Facebook profiles have been relatively insular. Now, they are cracking open the platform and making all profiles more discoverable. Private profiles are still private, but they’ve introduced a new way to reach people on the platform – Professional Mode.

What is Facebook Professional Mode?

Think of Facebook Professional Mode like a Creator profile on Instagram.

On Instagram, personal profiles can be private or public. The same holds true for Facebook.

On Instagram, you can change your profile status to either a Creator or a Business profile. Facebook now offers Professional Mode for profiles or pages for businesses.

When you turn on Professional Mode, you get access to creator tools on your personal profile without creating a separate Facebook page!

Professional Mode features previously only available to Pages:

• Professional Dashboard is a one-stop hub that allows you to view audience and profile insights, as well as the performance of your content.
• Upgraded profile design showcases a profile category directly on your profile.
• Post Composer enables you to schedule your posts in advance.
• Reels Collabs helps creators co-author a reel so you can create collaboratively.
• Monetization tools such as advertising, Reels Play (US only), and Stars.
• And many more!

Note: Professional Mode doesn’t allow for administrators on the profile. If you have a social media manager (lucky you!), they’ll have to use your profile credentials to log in and manage your account.

How do I turn on Professional Mode?

Here are instructions to turn on Professional Mode. You’ll be given several choices to set up your public profile and include a bio.

WARNING: If you have a private profile, turning on Professional Mode automatically makes your profile public.

Do I have to “friend” everyone now?

Thankfully, no. There are two ways to see a profile’s content. You can request to be their friend or follow them. If you follow a profile, you’ll only see their public content. If they accept your friend request, you’ll see all their content. Thus, creators can build a following without accepting friend requests.

Who can see my posts in Professional Mode?

You can set each post to be viewed publicly by a wider audience or privately by friends and family. Here’s a tutorial if you’ve never used this setting.

What if you’ve shared a million kid photos you don’t want visible to the public?

If you’re like me and used Facebook as a journal of your kids growing up and don’t want that all to go public, I have good news: Your previous posts preserve their original setting.

If your profile was private and you posted to “Friends Only,” those posts can still be seen by your friends but not anyone else.

The even better news is Facebook created a handy tool to clean up your profile and see what other audiences see. I was relieved that I only had to adjust the settings on a few posts I didn’t realize I had posted publicly.

Should I turn on Professional Mode or keep my business page?

It’s really up to you, your preferences, and what you’re trying to accomplish.

According to Meta: “You may build a following on both presences simultaneously, depending on your goals. A scenario where you would use both is to build a public presence for a business while you build your personal brand from your profile in Professional Mode.”

If you’re a personal brand and getting zero traction from your page, shifting your content sharing to your personal profile in Professional Mode could be worth it. I’m experimenting with this now.

If you would rather separate your personal and business personas, keep your personal profile private and have a business page.

The only scenario not allowed is opening a separate profile to have one private and one in Professional Mode. Facebook Community Standards forbids maintaining more than one personal account.

Use it for Your Business

As with any new feature, the platform incentivizes you to use it. In Meta’s words, Professional Mode is instrumental in “unlocking increased engagement between creators and their fans.”

If your content does well, Facebook will literally unlock additional reach because you’re using Professional Mode.

I’ve seen testimonial after testimonial of people converting their profiles to professional sharing platforms because the results were so amazing.

Obviously, I can’t guarantee the same results for you. And you can’t discount the fact that your friends and family may wonder why they’re suddenly seeing business content from you.

But, as Austin Armstrong said at the conference I attended:

“I sacrificed my friends and family for reach.”

That’s a risk you’ll have to take.

Relevancy Rating

Just because it's new doesn't mean it's worth your time: Is using Facebook in Professional Mode worth your time?

Sure: I give it 4 out of 5 thumbs up.

The only reason I didn’t rate this feature a 5 is the fact that you may have to wade through decades of old posts and weigh the potential impact on your friends and family already following you. Otherwise, it’s worth the experiment!

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