Facebook is rolling out the ability to have multiple personal profiles, which can be helpful for online sellers who want to keep friends and family separate from their selling, reselling, and collecting connections, for example.
As Facebook parent Meta explained in this week’s announcement, some people may prefer to keep their personal and professional relationships separate, or, it explained, “you may want to keep one profile tied to a community you’re a part of and another profile just for friends.”
By creating multiple personal profiles, “you easily organize who you share with and what content you see for the various parts of your life. Think one profile for the foodie scene you love and another one to keep up with your friends and family.”
Facebook said it believes the change will help people feel freer to engage with the audience they believe is most relevant.
However, Facebook is not changing its policy on “Account Integrity and Authentic Identity,” which states that users’ main Facebook profile must be in the name they go by in everyday life. “You can choose any name for your additional profiles, but not for your main profile,” it clarified.
How it works:
- Choose a name and have an @username for up to four additional personal profiles.
- Connect with the people or communities you choose so each profile has a unique Feed with relevant content and shared interests.
Be aware of privacy issues when creating new profiles – they’re automatically set to default settings – meaning if you changed your notification and privacy settings, those settings will not carry over to the new profiles. Read the “Controls” section especially carefully in Facebook’s announcement, and do your own research to make sure you understand how the new profiles work.
Also note that Marketplace, payments (and Dating and Professional mode) won’t be available to additional personal profiles at launch.
The ability to create multiple personal profiles started to roll out globally on Thursday and will continue over the next few months.
