FOR BUSINESS OWNERS
Should you hire a social media manager? What they do and what it costs in the UK
What a social media manager actually does, what the different routes cost in the UK, and the signs that you are ready to hand it over.
Profiles, Pages and professional accounts explained, and a simple way for business owners to split content between their own name and the business.
Should you post as yourself or your business? Usually both. Your own name builds trust and tells your story, while a business Page or professional account handles the offer and ads, plus access for your team. Meta’s terms say personal Facebook accounts are for personal purposes, so business activity belongs on a Page or professional-mode profile.
Run a small business and you’ve almost certainly noticed it. Your personal posts get more likes than anything on the business page. So you start to wonder whether you should post as yourself or your business. Are you even allowed to use your own profile for work? And what on earth do all the different account types mean?
This guide sets out the options on Facebook and Instagram in plain English, with the trade-offs of each. Then it gives you a simple way to split your content so you aren’t doing everything twice.
Realistically, Facebook gives you three.
This is the account you use with friends and family. Meta’s Terms of Service ask you to use the name you go by in everyday life. You’re meant to have only one account, and to use it for personal purposes. The terms add that if you use Meta’s products commercially, for example by buying ads or selling products, you have to agree to its Commercial Terms as well.
Professional mode turns your personal profile into a public-facing one, still under your own name. Meta’s comparison of Pages and profiles says it gets you a professional dashboard with insights. You also get monetisation tools and the ability to boost posts. Friends and followers stay together in one feed. What you don’t get is admin roles for a team. There’s no direct Ads Manager access either, and no Meta Business Suite.
A Page is a separate presence with its own feed and followers only. According to Meta’s comparison, Pages get the same insights and boosting as professional mode, on top of which you get admin roles. Ads Manager comes with it too, as does Meta Business Suite. You can name a Page after your business or after yourself. Jack Cartwright’s author Page runs in his own name, for instance.
| Feature | Profile (professional mode) | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Who sees it | Friends and followers | Followers |
| Insights dashboard | Yes | Yes |
| Boost posts | Yes | Yes |
| Ads Manager | No | Yes |
| Team admin roles | No | Yes |
| Meta Business Suite | No | Yes |
Source: Meta’s Facebook Pages and profiles comparison. Meta points out that some features depend on eligibility.
Instagram is simpler. You either keep a personal account or switch to a professional account. Professional accounts come in two flavours: Business or Creator. Instagram says Business suits retailers and local businesses, as well as brands and service providers. Creator is for public figures and content producers, as well as artists and influencers. Either way you get a professional dashboard and can run ads.
Plenty of owners keep one Instagram account in their own name and another for the business, while others are happy to run a single account in their own name and treat it as the business’s main home. Both work. Just be clear what each account is for.
People follow people. Post a photo of yourself on site, or an honest note about a rough week, or a short video of you explaining how you work, and you’ve given people something to react to. A logo announcing “We’re open as usual” almost never does that.
So don’t ditch the business account. Put more of yourself into it instead: your face, your voice, your reasons for doing the work. Your personal presence is often the best way in to the business, and it isn’t a distraction from it.
Still deciding how visible you want to be? The guide on whether small business owners need a personal brand covers the trade-offs.
Give each account a job. Then let content move between them.
| Content | Your own name | Business account |
|---|---|---|
| Your story and opinions | Main home | Share or reshare occasionally |
| Client work and results | Tell the story behind it | Show the finished work and the offer |
| Offers, prices and booking | Mention when relevant | Main home |
| Short videos of you explaining things | Main home | Repost or use as ads |
| Team news and reviews | Occasionally | Main home |
Collaborative posts on Instagram help both accounts without doubling the work. So does resharing on Facebook, or tagging the business from your own posts. Having a content plan and sticking to a regular rhythm counts for far more than how many accounts you run. If that’s exactly where it all falls apart for you, social media management can take the planning and publishing off your hands.
Putting money behind your content? Then set the business side up properly. Meta’s comparison shows you can boost posts from a professional-mode profile, but Ads Manager, with its fuller targeting and campaign controls, only comes with a Page. On Instagram you need a professional account to run ads at all.
Some of the best ads for owner-led businesses are nothing more than the owner talking to camera, run from the business Page. The guide on whether it’s worth running ads behind your personal brand goes into this, and there’s an overview of advertising options too.
It can. The ASA’s guidance on recognising ads on social media says posts that promote your own brand or products are marketing. They have to be obviously identifiable as marketing, even on a personal profile. Not sure whether a post needs a label? Check the ASA’s guidance yourself.
We plan content for Instagram and Facebook, then make it and publish it. We’re happy to run a personal-name presence alongside a business one so that each props up the other. Jack Cartwright’s Facebook Page, which we manage, went from 4,664 to 5,789 followers between July and October 2026, according to the Metricool figures on our social media management page. When you’re ready to put budget behind your content, our advertising work takes over from there. Start a conversation to talk it through, and before any work begins we’ll agree a brief and scope with you, along with the fee.
Only in a limited way, because Meta’s terms say personal accounts are for personal purposes. Mentioning your work or sharing business posts is fine. For ongoing business activity, though, Meta offers professional mode on your profile or a separate Page, and a Page adds team access and Ads Manager.
It depends on what you need. Professional mode keeps everything under your personal profile. Friends and followers see your public posts in one place. Go for a Page if other people need to help manage it, or if you want Ads Manager and Meta Business Suite.
Pick whichever describes how you work. Instagram suggests Business accounts for retailers and local businesses, as well as brands and service providers. Creator accounts are its suggestion for public figures and artists, as well as content producers. Both come with a professional dashboard and the option to run ads.
Yes. Lots of authors and speakers run a Page in their own name. So do plenty of consultants and public figures. You get a Page’s tools with the focus kept on you.
No, as long as each one has a clear job. Plan your content once and decide where each piece belongs. Then link the two with collaborative posts and reshares, or simply tag one from the other. Most owners find that one main account plus a lighter second one is manageable.
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