Authors are making use of Facebook for generating traffic to their websites. This social media approach is seen to be a great help in maximizing name recognition, social authority, email acquisition, and readership. Listed below are five reasons why it is important to create a great Facebook profile to increase your author following, rather than managing a page.

Simple

Managing a Facebook page and a Facebook profile is quite time consuming to maintain. Having both at the same time implies the need to duplicate the posts. Plus, chances are the friends on the profile and the followers on the page could just belong to one circle. Hence, why should an author run both? Many people get confused and unintentionally post updates to their profile rather than their page, or the other way around. Yet, choosing just one of the two can definitely make a big difference in increasing author following. A Facebook profile is much simpler to maintain and manage.

Personal

Some followers would rather connect with an author through his personal profile than his Facebook page. Authors are not a "faceless" company, which is why readers wish to connect with them personally. A Facebook profile gives readers an impression that the author is more reachable and approachable than with a page. This is mainly because a page can be perceived as built-in distance. When readers would like to get acquainted with authors and their writing, a Facebook profile could be a better place to achieve that, particularly with both the “Follow” and “Friend” option.

Visible

Contents posted on a Facebook profile can be seen by a lot more people than a Facebook page, specifically those pages with only a few likes or Edge Rank. Facebook consists of over fifty million pages. Competition in the feeds is astounding. An average user only has approximately 200 friends on Facebook, so the likelihood of being seen on the news feeds is significantly better. With a page, the author would need to wait for individuals to make the first move and like them. It is also impossible to comment on profiles or initiate a message with a page. Pages are also not allowed to participate in groups.

Privacy

With a profile, it is possible to have an unlimited number of followers while maintaining privacy in some elements of the profile. Even though a profile has a 5000-friend limit, it has absolutely no restriction on followers or subscribers. A lot of prominent personalities are now making use of this method as opposed to keeping a page. It enables them to designate each status, photo, and other elements as viewable by certain groups of friends, or by followers.

Embed

A Facebook profile can now be embedded on authors' blogs and websites. This plug-in or feature provides more ways or channels to get more traffic to the Facebook profile. This gives it an even more recognizable or reliable format for readers. When they arrive at the profile, they can see more about the author. This is also why the author must create a great Facebook profile to increase author following.