Follow these simple steps to create a thorough Facebook page for your business that will represent your brand well on social media:
Step 1: Select a classification for your Facebook business page.
Click here to get started with creating your business’s Facebook page, you will first be asked to select which classification best describes your business (only 6 options to choose from, so it’s not an overwhelming decision). By doing this, you will be able to drive more relevant searches to your page. Each choice has a few minor differences, but for the most part they’re all the same. Once you make your category selection, you will be prompted to provide your business name and location.
Step 2: Upload a profile picture and complete the information form in its entirety.
This step includes uploading a profile picture, which will appear every time you make a post or comment. For your business Facebook page, your company logo is a wiser choice than a headshot. You’ll want to make sure that you use a 180px by 180px image for the best results.
You will also want to be sure to complete the “About” information section. Part of that is coming up with 2 to 3 sentences that summarize what your business does, this is your “short description” and will appear on your business’s main Facebook page, so make it descriptive of your brand, yet to the point. To expand upon this, add a longer and more detailed summary to the “Long Description” area. While this more detailed description will not be visible on your Facebook page, you will want to be sure to complete it anyway as it is a great place to further optimize your profile to help drive more relevant traffic to your page.
Don’t forget to include a link to your company’s website in the longer description!
Step 3: Know how to access your page and familiarize yourself with the options.
Because Facebook pages must be attached to and administered by a personal Facebook account, the way you’ll access your page to create new posts or make updates is through your personal Facebook account either by clicking on your page in menu on the left called “Pages” or by clicking the down arrow at the very top right of the website and selecting “Manage Pages”.
Once you’re on your page you can hover over almost every section to reveal a pencil icon. To edit the information or settings of individual sections, simply click this icon. This will also allow you to make edits to any of the information that you provided in step 2 which will now fall under the “About” button at the top of your new page under the cover photo.
The other tool that you’ll want to make yourself familiar with is the “Build Audience” option which is located at the top right of your page. This tool allows you to invite your Facebook friends to “like” your page or promote your page with paid ads. We recommend that you use this tool with caution, though. Many small business owners get so excited that they created a Facebook page and immediately invite every Tom, Dick, and Jane they know to “like” their page. Instead, be more strategic and begin by inviting your biggest brand advocates. Once you add more content to your page and have generated some engaging conversations with posts, invite more people.
Step 4: Create great content for your Facebook page.
To start with, select an intriguing cover photo for your page. Some creative ideas you could try would be to make a collage of your brand’s products and services, showcase what your brand is all about, or introduce your employees. Or, try something more unique and have an image professionally created. Whatever you choose to do, be sure that the exact dimensions of your cover photo are 851px by 315px, this will prevent blurred images and text.
As you create Facebook posts for your page, try to offer a variety of content, such as images, video, stats, etc. This mix will help to prevent your posts from becoming monotonous, and sharing more visual-geared content as well as asking open-ended questions will help to inspire engagement and conversation among your fans.
Step 5: Measure your success.
Take advantage of free social media metrics tools from Facebook Insights to track your results. Some of these statistics are displayed on the right side of your Facebook page and you can access a suite of data by clicking on the “Insights” button at the top of your page. You will be able to see things like your reach, the level of engagement that your posts create, and much more to help you tweak your Facebook marketing strategy as necessary.
While you may not be able to immediately measure the success of other marketing methods, social media is unique in that there are usually a number of free build-in social media analytics tools to help you to measure how your marketing efforts are performing.
For more Facebook marketing tips, check out our recent post about creating conversations on Facebook with compelling content or swing by our Social Media Management page to see if there’s something we can help you with.
