How to set up a Facebook business page

Facebook is a free social networking site which was initially set up many years ago for college students to find out info about and communicate with fellow students.
The site then expanded to the general public allowing people like you and I to find long lost friends and family and to allow us all to keep up to date with what each other is doing through the use of messages, photos and other forms of on-line communication.

Facebook has really taken off over the past few years and we are now finding a very large demographic of generation X and Y consumers using Facebook at least once a day.
In fact in 2009, Facebook officially took over from Google as the most used website in the world (meaning that more people are using Facebook on a daily basis than people using Google).

One of the additions to Facebook in 2009 was the Facebook 'pages'. This essentially lets you set up a profile page for a business, band, community group or some other form of organisation. Once you have set up a Facebook page for your business, you can then attract 'likers' who are Facebook users that are notifying you they wish to be kept up to date with developments in your business.

Facebook users can ‘like’ your business and can communicate with you via facebook and be instantly informed when you make updates and announcements on your page.

By setting up a Facebook page for your business, you can capture the ever growing segment of your market that are Facebook users. For example, say you have an on-line shop (ecommerce), you could set up a Facebook page with links back to your website, discussions on the products you sell and use Facebook to announce specials offers, new products, etc.

This is a great way to build a community of Facebook users who are loyal to your business and are spreading the word of your business through the Facebook community which could attract more and more customers to you.

One of the great things about Facebook is that when someone makes a comment, posts a photo, etc. then all of the people in their network (it is quite common for people to have a couple of hundred people in their network) are automatically notified and therefore your brand is exposed to them.

We are now going to show you step by step how to set up your very own Facebook business page…

In order to set up a Facebook business page, you first need a Facebook account which you can get at www.facebook.com

Once logged into Facebook, go to http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/manage or click on ‘ads and pages’ on the left hand menu.
Click on the ‘+ Create Page’ button in the top right corner of the page.
On the right hand side of the screen, under the heading ‘Official Page’, choose ‘Local Business’. Once you do this, it will display a drop down allowing you to select the type of business you have. Try and pick the closest match to your industry.
Enter your business name in the ‘page name’ box
Ensure you tick the ‘I’m the official representative’ box and read the ‘review the Facebook terms’. This will allow you to become the administrator of the company page. Once the page is created, you can also allow other facebook users to become administrators as well so that they can make changes to the page.
Click the ‘Create Official Page’ button.

Your Facebook page is now created! The next step is to set up the information on it and start promoting it. To do this, ensure you perform the following tasks:

Add an image
The first thing to do is to add an image. This is then shown on the top left of your page to identify your brand and also as an icon on all posts you make through your page.
The best image to use is your company logo. To do this click on ‘Upload an image’ on the screen. Next browse for the logo/photo you wish to use on your computer. Please note it must me in JPG or PNG format.

Once the picture has uploaded, it will automatically create the image and icon.

Write a burb
The next step is to write a blurb about your business. To do this, click on the ‘write something about…’ box on the left hand side of the screen.

This should just be one sentence or paragraph. You can add more details about who you are in the ‘info’ page which is explained later.
Probably the best info to write here is your tag line if you have one and put in your phone number and website address. This will make it easy for visitors to easily identify and contact you if needed.

Info
The next step is to add all the info about your business. To do this click on the ‘info’ tab at the top of the screen and then click on ‘edit information’.

You can now fill in as much or as little detail as you want in the ‘basic info’, ‘detailed info’ and ‘contact info’ tabs.

Apps
Facebook pages include ‘apps’ that give your page extra functionality such as photo galleries, discussion boards, events and more.
You can add and remove apps on your page simply by clicking on ‘edit page’ on the top left and then clicking on ‘apps’ on the menu that appears.

The ‘added apps’ section shows all the default apps that have been enabled on your page. To remove any of them, simply click on the X on the right of the app you wish to remove.
You should ensure you remove apps that you are not going to use (eg. If you are not going to moderate a discussion board then remove it to prevent it being filled with spam).

If you remove apps you can always add them back at a later date.
At MantisTechnologies, we can also create custom apps such as a nice ‘home page’ for new visitors (see www.facebook.com/mantistechnologies)
For more info, contact us at www.mantistech.com.au

Suggest to your friends
In order to get the word out about your page, you should ensure you suggest the page to your friends so they can become ‘likers’.

To do this, simply click the ‘suggest to friends’ link on the top left under your photo/logo. This will then bring up a list of your friends and allow you to select them (by clicking on them) to then send an invite to ‘like’ your business page.

Setting up the web link
The next step is to set up an easy to remember web link for your page so that people can easily go to your new Facebook business page.

To do this, go to http://www.facebook.com/username/

Now select the page you created from the ‘page name’ drop down list. If your page is brand new, you may not be able to create a customised link yet. You will need to attract likers and use your page and keep checking back here until you are able to set it to what you want.

The next step is to create a Facebook ‘badge’. This lets you choose the type of badge to display on your website so you can promote your Facebook page to your website visitors.

To do this, click on ‘edit page’ on the top left under your photo/logo.

Next, to get a ‘badge’ to display on your website, click on ‘Marketing’ then ‘get a badge’. This lets you choose the type of badge to display on your website so you can promote your Facebook page to your website visitors.

Congratulations.. your Facebook page is now set up and ready to use. Ensure you add information about your industry, products and things you are doing to your wall to keep your likers up to date. It’s always best to find other company pages and ‘like’ them too in order to see how other businesses use Facebook pages to promote their brand.

Some great business pages to check out and ‘like’ are: