Want to launch a Facebook page for your company, brand, service, or product and don’t know where to start? Starting a Facebook page is as easy as going to www.facebook.com/pages and following the steps. However there are some things you want to consider before you do so:
Create a Page: If you already have your own Facebook profile all you have to do is go to www.facebook.com/pages and click on "create a page". Only if you are not registered to Facebook yet, you can create a business account. Having both personal and business accounts is denied by Facebook rules. For those who do not have a personal profile having a business account has two main benefits:
Sharing: You can share this account with other colleagues, even if they do not have their own FB account.
Advertising: You can administer advertising from this business account. Without this there would be no way to share advertising progress or allow another admin to check on the status without giving them access to your personal account, or exporting the report. Also if you would like to manage more than one page – advertising on Facebook only allows one billing method at a time, per account.
Choose your Name Carefully: Be sure to take into account the long-term purpose of the page because once you have 100 fans you will no longer be able to make any changes to the name of your page.
Prepare content before inviting friends: Once you sign in to your account and choose the name and category for your page, Facebook will take you through the steps of first uploading your profile picture, and then inviting friends. Skip this step for now as you will be able to do invite people at any time in the future (see tip #7).
Choose appropriate applications: There are many free applications on Facebook that are great for managing the content on your page to make it more dynamic. Facebook has recently removed the Applications Directory, but you can now search for applications directly in the main search bar on top of Facebook and then filter by clicking on Apps on the left bar. Installed applications are managed through Edit page –> Apps. Here are just a few of the most useful page applications for a business:
Reviews: Especially when starting a page, having some reviews from loyal fans not only brings credibility to your business but will increase fan growth.
Social RSS: Allows you to create a tab that displays the newsfeeds of any website you choose. This is great for adding a company blog, and you can set it to post automatically to your wall whenever your blog is updated with standard text like for example, "Check out our new blog” and a link to your blog.
YouTube Video Box: There are many different applications for managing how your YouTube videos display on your Facebook page, depending on whether you want to post videos from a specific channel or have the option to collect any YouTube video on this tab. Either way, it’s a great option for highlighting your YouTube videos.
Landing Tab: One more thing to consider before announcing your page publicly or inviting fans is a landing tab. In your setting you can choose which tab people will land on when they come to your page, the default will be your wall. By creating and designing a specific landing tab for your page, you have the opportunity to engage the new visitor with a call to action to your like your page, or offer them an incentive for becoming a fan. This will increase your fan growth significantly.
Track with Google Analytics: Though it is not easy to add the Google Analytics, with a little insight it is possible and will provide valuable metrics. Here is a helpful article that explains how.
Invite Customers to become Fans: Facebook provides two ways of announcing the launch of your page. Firstly, by going to Edit page –> Resources –> Tell your fans, you can upload a csv file from your database. Secondly, by using the "invite friends” option when viewing your page you can let your Facebook friends know. However, it is important to know that neither of these options will create a message, email, or notification. Therefore the most effective and direct way is to announce it to your database/clients through email with a link to your page.
Custom domain: Once you have 25 fans you can create a custom Facebook url (i.e. facebook.com/socialbakers) which will be a much nicer and neater way to share your Facebook url. However, be careful! Once you set this name you will not be able to change it.
Social Plugins: Now that your Facebook page is running, be sure to include Social Plugins on other marketing channels such as your website and emails in order to turn your customers into brand advocates at every touch point.
Monitor: Don’t forget to use Facebook Insights on at least a monthly basis to see how your page is performing against your goals and KPIs. For even more valuable insight as to what content is most engaging your fans, what times of the day/week you should post, and even identifying your most influential fans, sign up for Socialbakers Engagement Analytics.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on socialbakers.com. Any statistics or statements included in this article were current at the time of original publication.
