12/13/2021
NEW!! Switch your Facebook personal profile to "Professional Mode," if you wish. (Coming soon). No need for a Business Page if you're a Creator building a presence on your profile. This new mode provides insights and monetization features. Great news for lots of folks! 🥳🎉
Facebook states, "We know that many creators — especially those who are just starting out — are on profiles, so from today we’re announcing the roll-out of a new professional mode for profiles."
Professional mode allows creators to:
🔹 Track audience growth and other key insights.
🔹 Monetize through Stars, Paid Online Events, and Bonuses (see next point).
🔹 Participate in the Reels Play bonus program, where payouts are up to $35,000 per month, depending on views. (Reels Play is currently invite-only, but I'm seeing a lot of folks received invites, including myself).
🔹 Open up to allow anyone to follow you and see your content. (This feature has been available on personal profiles for a long time).
🔹 Build a following more as a public figure. But, still publish content to friends only.
Professional mode is being tested with a limited number of profiles in the US, and will begin rolling out in EMEA next year.
[***UPDATE*** -- due to a few pertinent points coming up in the comments, I'm adding these here. 1️⃣ If you switch to Professional Mode, you'll still have the ability to choose the privacy settings of each and every post you publish. E.g. friends only, friend lists, certain friends, or public. Switching to Professional Mode does not automatically make your past private posts public. 2️⃣ There is no limit to the number of followers you can have. The number of friends remains at 5,000 max. But, followers is the same as it is now on personal profiles - if you enable the setting to allow followers, it's unlimited. Same as on our public/business Pages, whether Classic or NPE.]
*ADDITIONAL POINTS OF NOTE:*
🔸 If you're already building out a public figure presence using a Business Page, your Page will be morphed into NPE - New Pages Experience - if it hasn't already. NPE looks very much like a personal profile vs. Classic Pages.
🔸 Facebook is testing a two-step composer on Pages, which allows creators to schedule posts and cross-post into a group. (Nice!)
🔸 Facebook is working on more advanced editing features for Reels on the platform, e.g. create a Reel comprised of multiple clips more easily, save Reels as a draft, and create Reels up to 60 seconds (same as Instagram Reels).
So, what do you think? Will you switch to Professional Mode, given the option?
Meta's official announcement:
https://about.fb.com/news/2021/12/introducing-new-tools-to-support-facebook-creators-in-emea/
See also these articles:
https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/8/22823891/facebooks-professional-profiles-tools-creator-audience-monetization
&
https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/08/facebook-tests-a-new-professional-mode-for-creator-profiles/
