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No doubt about it… FaceBook is fun. You can find friends from high school, college, old employers… it’s great to see how people are doing.  However, the biggest challenge authors have with FaceBook is where to draw the line between the personal and professional.

Branding yourself as an author versus your personal life can be confusing.  FaceBook can help or hinder you in this area if you don’t use it appropriately.  You can use Facebook Fan Pages to create a separate presence for your book AND to build an audience.

A Fan Page is a page that can be created just for your book.  This was done to allow authors, businesses, bands, non-profits and others to have a place to gather.  Individuals can become “Fans” of your page, which is completely separate from your personal profile.  The benefit for us authors is that you can provide book related content to your fans without them seeing the picture of you sent your grandparents last Christmas.

Now you can begin telling people about your Fan Page and invite them to “become a fan”.  You can advertise within FaceBook and target potential readers.  On your Fan Page, you want to give folks things to do, learn, try all focusing on the topic of your book.  Ask fans to leave comments and respond to comments when you have the time.  You can use Social Oomph or Hootsuite to schedule content updates to your Fan Page for you!  Use your Fan Page like a mini website to promote your book.

Let’s face it.  You need a Facebook Fan Page for your book and perhaps one for your company too.  Some authors are promoting their books and keeping in touch with readers using their Fan Page and other authors let their page languish into oblivion.  But you must have a Fan Page for your book.  Your readers expect and your publisher may require it.

No matter how you use the page you must make a conscious effort not to break the rules created and put in place by Facebook for Fan Page administrators.  There are many rules and you swore to uphold them when you signed on the dotted line before creating your Fan Page.  Break even one of these rules and you can wave bye bye to your Fan Page and all of the fans you worked so hard to get.

Facebook is offering you a free service so they get to call the shots so it’s important to know the rules.  Facebook reserves the right to reject or remove Pages for any reason and they can do so without warning.  Marketing Gum has a great article about these rules and the consequences of breaking them.  Did you know, for example, that your Fan Page cover photo cannot include your contact information or pimp your most recent coupon or sale?  If you didn’t know that and if you haven’t read the rules you must read the article by Marketing Gum.  To read the story of one company that broke the rules read “Social Media : To Facebook Hell & Back” and start taking these rules seriously.