Local business Facebook page creation can be imperative to survival and an efficient way to successfully market to your target audience. Facebook pages are the perfect opportunity to market and advertise your brand or business for little to no cost and basic set up is just as easy.
The very first thing you need to do is Sign into or sign up for a Facebook profile. If you’re one of the few people left in the US who hasn’t created a personal FB profile now is the time.
I want to take a minute to briefly discuss the difference between a FB profile and a FB page. According to Facebook’s Terms of Service, FB profiles are only intended for individuals and are not to be created by businesses, hence the creation of FB pages. FB pages give your past, present, and future clients as well as your brand advocates an avenue to keep up with your current events, sales, accolades and more.
After logging in or signing up, visit www.facebook.com/pages and click on the create a page button.
First thing you’ll need to tell Facebook and it’s users is what type of page you would like to create, based on the type of business you have – you see there are 6 categories and from there you will narrow further – in this case we’ll use ‘local business or place.’
Now you’ll need add the basic business information for your business. Begin by choosing the category; here again you will chose ‘local business’, but there are many more niche choices available to narrow the categorization (feel free to look at those and see if one fits your business better). Next, add the business name, address and phone number to get started, review and agree to the terms of service, and click get started.
After the initial creation, Step 1 is to add your brand’s logo. – Use personal photos if your brand is mainly comprised of 1 or 2 people, or stick with your brand’s logo to maintain brand consistency. You’ll need to Upload the image either from your website or your computer before moving on.
Step 2 is the time when you want to ‘invite’ as many of your contacts as is possible—friends, family, business acquaintances. You can also import your contacts from various email accounts and other connect social media networks.
I have ‘Include a message’ starred because I think this is a very important step—this allows you to comment on your wall post and let your friends know that you’ve created a page for your business venture. These posts are more likely to be viewed by the people you’re inviting and it sets you up for an opportunity to open communication with potential clients immediately.
You also want to make sure the ‘like this page’ is checked so that it automatically ‘likes’ your own page (wouldn’t want to look like you didn’t like your business would you?).
Step 3 is where you add your business’ basic information. This is also where you’ll add your business’s website URL (if applicable).
Use the About section to tell prospective clients and FB users who you are, what your business is, company motto and mission, and other basic information. This of this as your elevator speech. This will appear on your left side bar and is always visible. Be sure to use keywords, location details and any information you would want first time customers to know. Also keep in mind only the first 160 characters or so are immediately visible from the sidebar so you’ll want to use your most descriptive words first.
Now you’ve done it! You’ve created a basic local business Facebook page! Facebook kindly also gives you steps and tips on how to better optimize and utilize your page right from the beginning. Now you’re ready to promote, interact, and learn from your visitors.
Good to Know After Page Creation
On the left sidebar you’ll see your brand logo and a series of tabs (getting stared, wall, info, etc) if you learn how to or hire someone to manipulate FB’s xbml code you can have a personalized branded fb page and tabs. Next you see the about information that you inputted earlier and the amount of people who ‘like’ your page (this will grow obviously), below this you have the option to add this page to any other pages you may be the administrator of, subscribe to the page via RSS and share the page in a group, on your wall, or in an email.
In the right side bar you’ll see the avatar, that is the profile picture, of anyone you have given administrator access to, the option to use your FB page account as a profile (this opens up some other capabilities not otherwise available), your notifications, the option to advertise on FB, view your pages insights (which is something you’ll want to pay attention to), and the location from which to invite any friends you forgot to invite earlier on in the process.
Every Facebook page can have it’s own unique vanity url, or username, however think and choose carefully because once you’ve chose a url it cannot be changed. Simply chose the page you want to designate a url for and check the availability. Occasionally FB requires that you have 25+ ‘likers’ before allowing you to claim your url, this is where all of those people you invited earlier comes in handy, a branded url is important for all businesses and protects your brand from a competitor using the same name.
- •Use ‘Insights’ page to learn more about your ‘likers’ and customers.
- •Create a Facebook Page ad to drive hyperlocal and specialized traffic to your new page.
- •Invite friends to share your page with their friends.
Let me know if you have any questions!
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Love the way you laid this information out. It breaks it down to simple steps and explains their purpose. Great job! I have bookmarked this for my reference later. Thanks!
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