With Facebook now having 500 million active users there has never been a better time to get yourself involved by creating a Facebook page for your business. People are said to spend over 700 billion hours a month on the social media site so it would be wise to get in on the action now.
With this in mind, here is a step-by-step guide to how to start up your own Facebook page and get your marketing campaign rolling:
1. Create A Page
Click on the “Create Page” link on the top right on facebook.com/pages. You will then be given the option to choose a category from a list including Company, Organization or Institution, Brand or Product etc. Here you can choose the appropriate category for your page.
2. Fill In Information
You should now fill in the name, address and phone number of your business. You will then be asked to tick a box agreeing to the terms and conditions.
3. Add Your Choice of Photograph
Here you are given the option to upload a photo for your page. The photo can be a logo, photo of a person or your shop etc; it is for you to decide. The file will need to be smaller than 4MB however and can be as rectangle or square.
4. Suggest Your Page
It is a good idea to suggest your page to your friends. Once you begin to type their names and drag the cursor over their name it will show in blue. You can then click it to invite them. When you are ready to begin inviting people you then just need to click “Send Recommendations”.
5. Import Contacts
You can reach out to your email contacts by clicking on “Import Contacts”. You can again tick the box next to the names of the people you’d like to invite. For people who are already on Facebook, they will get a “Recommended Pages” widget on their Facebook. Everyone else will receive an email.
6. Write Your Content
Once you have a photograph uploaded and a few friends, you can begin engaging. Status updates can be shared with everyone or targeted by location or language. Targeting is useful if the Page is for a business with various locations.
As regards to posting a link to a blog post or news story, it is not advisable to simply type or paste the URL into a status update. It is best to click “Link” and then paste the URL and click “Attach”. This will make the post look better and allow it to work better. Now you can simply click “Share”.
7. Getting A Vanity URL
In order to reserve a vanity URL where your Facebook URL is www.facebook.com followed by your business name, you need to have 25 fans on your Facebook page. Go to the Username page, and select the Page name from the menu. You can then write in the name you’d like to use to check if it is available. Click to confirm, to lock in the URL if you want it, but bear in mind that you cannot change it once you have confirmed it.
8. Make Use Of The Available Tools
Facebook Insights is a very useful tool that can help you decide when to post and what kind of content works well. Measuring the success of social media is difficult, but many brands focus on engagement. Activity is good, and you can keep tabs on activity by clicking “Facebook Insights” on the right sidebar.
9. Allocate Other Admins
You have the option of inviting several people to run the Page and post content. In the “Admins” section on the right, click “See All.” A new page will appear with the names of the admins. To make someone else an admin, you just need to type in their name. Pages can have as many admins as you wish.
Please do not hesitate to contact one of Network Intellect’s digital specialists if you would like to know more about optimising your social presence.
