But Mark asked me to research a Fan page and what kind of exposure it would bring. I hesitated on becoming a “fan” of the Fan page — only because I was aware of how much growth and interaction he had already seen on his profile page. It also seemed that a personal profile page offered far more in the way of loading videos, adding links and creating that real, personal experience with his “friends.”

So I looked into it and found some very interesting articles.

• Facebook Group vs. Facebook Fan Page: What’s Better? Fan pages are visible to unregistered people and are thus indexed, while groups allow you to do more in the way of viral marketing through the “bulk invite.” The article also says that pages are generally better for long-term relationships with your fans, readers or customers. And I knew long-term relationships were important to Mark — so maybe this was going in the right direction.
• Why You Need to Make a Facebook Fan Page for Your Web site Now! This is a great post that also brings up the idea of sending “updates to fans,” helping to build a database of users. And the “viral” aspect of a Fan page is helped by the news feed — so when someone joins a Fan page, it is published for all their Facebook friends to read.

My conclusion is that while I still may not yet be a PERSONAL fan of the Facebook Fan page, it obviously offers several benefits to those who choose to create one-so I recommended Mark go for it! Happy Facebooking!