In the days when Facebook pages were static, mostly-useless afterthoughts, many users would opt to set up a “profile” for their company (ie: First Name: BOOST Last Name: Social Media) in an effort to create a more interactive way for the company to communicate with its fans which, in the case of a profile versus a business/fan page, would be the company’s “friends”. With a profile you can “like” other company pages, comment on posts by individuals or companies, and connect with other users as “friends”.

In the case of the original business page, you were relegated to commenting as an individual user – the administrator of the page – rather than as the company itself. With the most recent update to Facebook pages, you can use Facebook as a “page”, rather than as your individual profile. You can comment, share articles, and post Wall updates with the identity of your page, rather than as an individual. As a result, this makes the need to create a “profile” for a company unnecessary.

Facebook has finally gotten the hint that people want their fan pages to be able to interact on the site in the same ways that they can as an individual user with a profile. In light of the updated business page functionality, Facebook is encouraging those who originally set up their company as a “profile” to now convert it to a “page”, where the account’s “friends” would then be converted to “fans”. This resolves the issue a lot of companies have in wanting to migrate from profile to page, but not wanting to lose the fans they’d acquired as friends under a profile setup.

Fast Company’s Kit Eaton wrote an article talking a bit more about Facebook’s motivation for making the switch-over possible and why users might opt to make the change.

Do you have a profile, rather than a page, set up for your company? Will you make the transition? Why or why not? Leave a comment below to share with our readers.