So you are starting a business and maybe doing it solo. You keep hearing about the power of Facebook to promote it, but need some sort of beginners guide? You’ve come to the right place. Facebook is bigger than ever, and creating a Facebook Business Page is about the best marketing investment for the money (none) today. So how do you go about creating one of these magical hubs of salacious social swagger? Here is a quick step by step guide to setting up a Facebook Business page.
Head on over to https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php and begin.
1. Choose What Kind of Business You are
This is pretty self explanatory, just pick the the classification that best suits you.
- Local business or place – Usually a brick and mortar place and you promote to a certain region. Awesome for a local bakery as an example.
- Artist, band, or public figure – Great for those promoting a personal brand like the band you put together and now hoping for stardom.
- Company, organization, or institution – Just your normal company that deals with various sectors.
- Entertainment – Do you see your business as an entertainment provider? This may be for you then.
- Brand or product – Do you sell something? Are you a brand like that can be obtained? Then this one is for you.
- Cause of community – Non profits, organizations with a cause and those that do good can go for this category.
Once you’ve picked your classification, they will ask you to choose a category and fill some information (It varies slightly depending on the classification you choose.) The local option also asks for further address information. Make sure that you take your time choosing a category though, as you will not be able to change it after the fact.
2. Complete Basic Information
Once your done choosing a category and all that jazz, you will be taken to your brand new Facebook Business Page! Wooohooo! It looks pretty bare when right now. It’s your job to make it pop. A good place to start is to pick a profile picture. If you have a logo for your business, you should put it here. If not, pick a picture that you feel best represents the essence of your company, and looks cool to boot. Then choose your cover photo, making sure that it meshes well with your profile picture. Now it’s time to hit up the about section, where you will fill in the details of who you are, what you offer etc.
3. Editing the info
After your done filling out the about section to your satisfaction, it’s time to go a little more in depth. Click the “edit info” button and fill out everything that applies, such as the hours you are open (if you’re a local business). No matter what kind of classification you are, you should fill out the description section thoroughly. And be descriptive. If someone is going to your info page to find out more about your company, it be a damn shame if they left bored. So spice it up a little. Show us just how charming you are!
4. Invite Friends to Be Fans
When you first start your business page, it is not going to have any fans. A good way to get started on building your fan base it to invite all your friends to like your page. This will establish a foundation that will give you a little more credibility to outsiders than if you you had no fans at all.
5. Start Socializing
Now that you have somewhat of an audience, it’s time to start engaging them! Post a status update announcing that you are now on the scene. Call your friends and ask them to like you status so that your reach extends to their network. Don’t be distressed if you don’t have a million fans in the first day. It takes a fair amount of time, effort and patience, to build a loyal audience for your brand, but once you do the results can be all kinds of fruitful.
6. Consider Advertising
To get some exposure and help build your fan base, you may want to consider doing some paid advertising on Facebook. Don’t fret, it’s really not that expensive, and you can control how much to spend on a daily bases. They allow you to target Facebook users with a demographic you choose, like within a local area, age or gender even an interest or a fan of your competitor with ads. You only pay of they click on the ad and thus its totally yours to control.
Last I recommend doing some more research, read up on Facebook engagement, sweepstakes and marketing promos you can take on. There are endless marketing tactics that work great for Facebook and Google has them all at your fingertips.