In our social media age every business, however big or small, needs to have some kind of social standing. Sometimes people are daunted by social media – branding it to be ‘a social thing for the youth generation’, well, it’s not.
There are over 800 million people logging in to Facebook, which means it’s a priceless platform to spread the word about your brand – and best of all it’s free!
To help you on your way, we will be submitting some quick guides to setting up your business on Facebook and how to get the best out of the time you put in.
So here’s how to get yourself started:
You need to go onto the Facebook website and sign yourself up. Once you’ve created your account using an email address and creating a password you can go from there and create your own business page. Follow this link here to get your page rolling, you should see a screen like the shot below:
Step 1: Pick a category and name for your page
Select the category which best fits you company or brand. If you can localise your listing do so – it always makes your page more accessible to local customers (this category is recommended by Facebook to local businesses which provide a product or service to or in a particular place). Remember to choose you category carefully as these cannot be changed afterwards.
Step 2: Add a Profile picture to represent your company
Click ‘Upload Picture’ near the top of the page and choose a photo to upload for your page. This image should be something which best represents you company or brand so people who don’t know who you are. You should select an image which is a decent size and clear, so that when seen as a thumbnail people can still identify you. If you want to see an example take a look at a personal profile, and look at the size of the ‘Profile Picture’, as that’s the same as yours will be.
Step 3: Add information about your Brand
Underneath your profile picture, you’ll see a section which says ‘Add information to this page’. Once you can start adding information, put in as many details as possible. Transparency is important, especially on social profiles so the more your audience can find out about you the more trustworthy your page will appear, and you’ll also appear more interesting to the fans. The more you talk about who you are, what you do and where your customers can buy your products the more successful you’ll be.
Step 4: Make it rich and engaging for your audience
Just like user profiles, business pages have multiple tabs, the first being a wall tab for yourself and users to share information, a business Information and Boxes tab (for applications), all of which will come with the page by default.
You can choose to devote entire tabs to several Facebook applications, such as Photos, Reviews and Discussions. In addition, applications built by outside developers can choose to use Page tabs.
The richer the content you add, the more ways users can engage with you and extend that connection to their friends. Post photos of employees, customers and products. Add video clips of your bar or hairdressers or tyre-fitters doing what they do best. ‘Behind the scenes’ content often works well. List an event for your grand opening or in-store sale or why not write a note about up and coming promotions. The choices are endless, entirely controlled by you and most importantly they’re free!
Step 5: Publish yourself!
When you’re ready to share your page with the world, simply click ‘Publish page’, and you’re now connected to the Facebook sphere.
Optimise your page’s performance by clicking the “Edit page” option and setting a variety of your own controls. For example, you can control the default landing page for users who have not yet ‘Liked’ your Page.
You can also choose whether or not to allow fans to share Wall posts, photos and more; allowing these will enrich your page and increase its reach across Facebook.
Facebook Adverts can link to your page, reach your exact target audience and increase your fan base. Since Facebook can automatically enhance your adverts with stories about these fans engaging with your page, advertising your page can generate a virtuous cycle of consumer engagement over time.
Don’t forget to share updates and your page with other friends on Facebook. You can do this by using the ‘Find friends on Facebook’ tool. Once you’ve selected who you’d like to connect to you can then share information, updates and everything else on your brand’s page with them.
Step 6: Update regularly
It’s important to keep your brand’s page fresh and update it as much as possible. This doesn’t have to be hours of work, five to ten minutes a day will be ample time. Keep people updated on any relevant news about your company or another. Keep posting competitions or promotions and update previous posts. By doing this you’ll be able to roll out a higher level of content, so your fans have more of an opportunity to see what’s happening with your company and give them more of a chance to interact with you.
You can also now send messages to your fans by clicking ‘Send an update to Fans’, located in the top left hand corner of the page. Updates are a great way of sending out new, interesting information, promotions, sales or other events.
So now you’ve got your page set-up and are able to update your page and share these updates you can begin to fully utilise your Facebook page. Remember the more you put in the more you’ll get out, and that if your content is rich and engaging then your fans are far more likely to interact with you and your page.
If you find social media a complete mine field and wish to know more about the subject, you can check out our previous social media blogs or why not contact us for social media campaign management and set up?
Keep checking our blog page for more in our ‘How to…’ blog series.
