Separating facebook pages for 2 separate but similar companies

[donsilvernail]

I am currently working with a payroll company that has two separate businesses. Payroll services and Time and Attendance services. Currently the client has 1 facebook page with about 50 likes that caters for both companies.

My question is.... Should I separate the payroll and time and attendance companies and create 2 separate facebook pages, or since the businesses are so close together, we could use the one page to promote both businesses. We also have a similar issue with LinkedIn company pages.

What do you guys think? Separate pages or combine pages? Currently there are 2 separate websites for each companies services.

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Donald,

I have 4 questions:

Are these local businesses (i.e. do they serve clients in person vs. virtually?)

Are they branded separately? If so, how separately? Is it Jones Payroll and Davis Time & Attendance, or is it Jones Payroll and Jones Time & Attendance?

Do they occupy the same physical address?

Do they each have a unique phone number?

[RobCairns]

In that case I would definitely be separating them for 2 reasons:

1. The client is moving in that direction and a separation now is easier than once the campaign gains traction. Less upheaval to potential visitors and clients, etc.

2. You can directly monitor the benefits of your work as a case for your client to keep you on based on your success. If you are only responsible for 1 part of the business, separate them and show that your work is beneficial when compared against the part of the business you are not working on.

Not exactly a technical SEO approach, but definitely pragmatic and a good move for both you and your client to separate and increase the timekeeping aspect of the business.

[donsilvernail]

The overall objective is to drive traffic to the timekeeping aspect of the business. I am not working on the payroll part. The client wants to increase the timekeeping business to overtake the payroll business eventually. I figure this is a good time for this discussion because the page itself does not really have an audience yet. We will be building utilizing facebook and linkedIn advertising.

[RobCairns]

Hi Donald,

The first question I have in response to yours is:

What is your strategy regarding the social aspect of your campaign?

If it is going to be the bedrock of your campaign AND your client wishes to keep their services separate, then you probably want to have separated social pages for each service provided (especially if you have different websites for those services).

If social is secondary to your campaign beside SEO, PPC, etc. then I think you can keep them together. Either way, your social signals aren't going to have a huge impact on your campaign from a rankings perspective. They may help with incoming traffic but it sounds as if they are starting pretty small for now.

On the flipside, a combined page makes sense if the business uses the same branding, logo, etc. under an umbrella service (i.e. business administration services) instead of separating their services under "payroll" and "attendance". What you do should be influenced by what your client wishes to do with their branding and services provided rather than any technical needs on your end as their digital marketing rep.

Again, all of this depends on what you are trying to accomplish with this aspect of your campaign - maybe you can help by shedding some extra light on the situation?

Cheers,

Rob