How to Set Up a Facebook Page for Business
Have you decided that it’s time to
create a Facebook Page for your business?
Wondering exactly how to get your
Page started the right way?
Facebook continues to change and
evolve, making it a moving target for people trying to find the correct steps
to set up a Page. But never fear—we have all the critical pieces that you need
to put in place to start your Facebook Page today.
To set up your Facebook Page, just follow
these steps:
#1:
Log into Facebook
If you do not have a personal
profile set up on Facebook, do that first at www.facebook.com. Even if
you don’t want a personal profile, we highly recommend that you create one
rather than creating a “business-only” Facebook Page because of the limitations
you will encounter (see point #8 for the Business-only Page limitations).
Either login to your personal
account, or create a new personal account from Facebook.com.
Once you have logged into your
personal account, we are going to create your Business Page. Your
Business Page will be “tied” to your personal profile, but they are completely
separate. No one can see your personal information from your Page. No one can
even see the name of the administrator of the Page.
#2:
Create a Page While Logged in as Your Profile
Go to www.facebook.com/pages/create.php. Take a look
at the main categories of the Pages and decide which one fits your business.
Click on one of the boxes to select that main category for your business
and browse through the categories in the drop-down menus to see which one fits
best.
Select the most appropriate category
for your business.
Do not select Local Business or
Place unless you have a physical storefront that your customers come to,
because Facebook will automatically turn your Page into a Place as well. You
don’t want people coming to “check in” to your home office.
#3:
Choose Your Category from the Drop-down Menu and Name Your Page
The categories are not always
perfect, but for the most part, they aren’t critical. Categories may be more
important for local businesses as they are more visible in Facebook’s Graph Search, which is
rolling out. But the categories aren’t as important for other Pages currently.
Choose your category from the
drop-down menu. You can change this later if needed.
The name of your Page will be
whatever you put into the box just under the Category menu. Spend some time
thinking about your Page name carefully. If you have a clear brand name,
then the choice is easy. If you are just starting out, you may not have that
nailed down yet. Having keywords in your Page title can be a good idea because
the keywords help your Page to come up in Facebook search. You have a limit of
70 characters for your Page name.
Facebook also insists on
capitalizing the first word of the Page name and you cannot create the Page
with unusual capitalizations such as “WidgetPro.” You can petition to have your
name changed if this is the official name of your business, but you will have
to create the Page initially without the unconventional capitalization.
You will be able to change your Page
name up until the point you have 200 fans (or likes), so if you aren’t sure
about the name at the start, you can tweak it for a little while.
Select the box next to “I agree to Facebook Pages Terms” and click Get Started. You
are taken through some steps that will help you add your photo, enter your
About information and more. The first step is to add your profile picture.
#4:
Add Your Profile Picture
The profile picture is the image
that appears next to every post that goes into the news feed from your Page.
The ideal size for a profile photo is 180 pixels by 180 pixels, but it can be
larger with different dimensions. You will be able to adjust the viewable
portion of the profile picture by mousing over the photo and clicking Edit
Profile Picture and then Edit Thumbnail.
Select where your profile photo will
be uploaded from.
Once you have your profile photo
added, click Next and you are taken to a place to add your About information.
#5:
Add Your Basic About Information
The About Page has several large
sections to wax poetic about your wonderful business. The beautiful thing is
that the About Page is indexed in Google, so you will want to make sure it
is very descriptive and keyword-rich.
The basic About information that
they ask you to enter initially is the field that will appear directly on your
timeline just under your cover photo. You only have 155 characters that will
show in this field (you can actually write more but only 155 characters show up
in the field, so limit your blurb to that size).
I suggest you make sure to link
to your website is in this field, so people can easily find your website
since this field is so prominent. You want to add your website address into
the website field as shown in the image. You can also add other websites
that you want to direct people to such as Twitter or other social sites by
clicking on the Add Another Site link.
Add your basic information to the
About field.
Click the Yes radio button that you
are representing a real business and then click Save Info. Congratulations, you
now have your Business Page set up! But you aren’t ready for prime time yet.
There are still a few things you need to do. Facebook will take you through a
series of steps automatically (not all of which need to be done).
#6:
Like Your Own Page
Facebook prompts you to like your
own Page, which is a good idea but it isn’t required.
Like your own Page.
#7:
Do Not Invite Your Email Contacts Yet
Facebook then takes you to the place
where you can invite your email contacts. Do not do this until your Page is
updated a bit more. And I personally don’t like using Facebook’s feature to
accomplish this. Create your own email message instead and send it
directly from whatever email service you use.
#8:
Share Something
Facebook prompts you to share
your first status update. Again, you can decide to do this now or skip it.
It is a good idea to have many status updates on your timeline before you
start inviting people to like your Page so they can see the types of things
you are going to be sharing.
#9:
Add a Cover Photo
No page is complete without a good cover photo. Your cover
photo has to be a minimum of 399 pixels wide (most standard photos are fine)
and works best if it is sized to 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels high. If you do
use a standard photo, you will be able to position it to fit in the space, but
some area of the photo at the top or bottom will be hidden.
To change the Cover photo, hover
over the bottom right corner of the Cover photo area and select the option you
need.
As of March 6th, Facebook’s Cover Photo terms state that the cover photo
cannot include more than 20% text. The good news is that some of the old
restrictions (no calls to action, no websites or addresses) have been removed.
So you can tell someone to Like your page right in the cover photo.
The way Facebook determines the 20%
rule is that they have a grid of 25 blocks that they overlay on your Facebook
Cover Photo. If more than 5 of those boxes have text in them, your cover photo
is breaking the 20% maximum rule. Post Planner has a handy tool that you can use
to plug in your cover photo to check.
Once you have a cover photo that
meets these guidelines, click the Add a Cover button and then select Upload
Photo. Choose the photo from your computer, position it on your Page the
way you want it to show and click Save Changes.
#10:
Add to Your About Page
Even though you added the small
blurb about your company, you also should include more on your About Page,
since it is a chance for you to talk about what your company can do for others.
Click the Edit Page and Update info menu selections from your admin panel at
the top of your Page.
Update your About Page by going to
the Update Info selection.
You have a lot of potential real
estate on your About Page and it’s a good idea to highlight all of the good
things about your company and list the websites where people can find
you.
The About Page varies depending on
what category you chose and you can switch categories from this area as well
(select a different category from the drop-down menu at the top). If you
categorized yourself as a local business, you will have a map on your About
Page with the address of your business.
Add to your About Page.
#11:
Review Your Permissions
Go into Edit Page, then Manage
Permissions from the admin panel and review how your permissions are set up.
In general, they are set up decently for a new Page, but you may want to change
the Profanity Blocklist to Medium at least and you may want to change your
Message button.
The message button is on by default,
which means that people can send your Page messages (usually a good thing in my
opinion), but you also have to make sure you monitor and watch for messages
there. If you are overwhelmed by the thought of another inbox, ensure you
are making it easy for people to contact you in a different way.
Review your permissions.
At this point, your Page is
basically ready to go out into the world of Facebook. Now it’s time to get some
likes on your page!
