How to Set Up Your Facebook Page

Facebook is the world's biggest social media site and its users number in the hundreds of millions, with that number still growing. Facebook doesn't offer company pages, but it allows businesses to create their own Page. A Page is almost like a website that's easy to customize and provides a great way to connect with customers.

Create a Facebook Personal Account

If you don't already use Facebook, you have to create a personal account first before you can create any Pages. You need a regular account to serve as the admin. You don't have to use this account or make it public, but it needs to be there in order to manage your Page. You'll log in through this personal account each time, and then be able to take care of your Page.

Choose Your Category

On your Facebook profile along the tabs on the left-hand side, click where it says 'Create a Page.' The first thing it will ask you is to choose a category. The categories are:

·           Local business or place

·           Company, organization or institution

·           Brand or product

·           Artist, band or public figure

·           Entertainment

·           Cause or community

Choose the one that most applies to you. For a business, it's most likely to be 'local business or place' or 'company, organization or institution'.

Basic Business Information

The next step is to enter basic information about your business. Depending on the category that you choose, you can enter your business's name, address, type of business, contact information, and more.

Next, you have to fill in content about your business. This includes the About and Description pages. The About page is a short blurb that serves an introduction to your business. It's the first thing users will see when they view your profile. The Description has a longer word count, so you can go into more detail about your business there.

Write your business details in a friendly but professional way. It shouldn't sound too cold or technical. Many companies start off with a welcome message such as, 'Welcome to our Facebook Page' or 'Welcome to our online community.'

When filling out your basic business information, fill out all fields completely. Optimize your content for search engines with relevant keywords, as your Facebook Page will appear in search engine results. There are also areas where you can add information about specific products.

Uploading Photos

Your Page includes a profile photo and a cover photo. The cover photo is the large image across the top of your page. The profile photo should be your logo or something else instantly recognizable that tells people that this is your business’s page. Your cover photo should show something related to your business, but not pull focus away from the content of your page. Take a look at cover photos on the Facebook pages of businesses similar to yours to get ideas.

When you're finished with written content and photos, view your page to make sure it looks right.

Completing Your Page

To round out your Facebook page, add a few finishing touches such as admins and tabs. On your page, there is a place for you to choose admins. These are the people who will have access to editing the page. They need to have regular Facebook accounts, and you can add them using their email addresses.

Underneath your cover photo are tabs, in the form of small image boxes. Only three of them are visible to users unless they click the little down arrow, which users don’t often do. You should customize your tabs by creating new ones and putting the ones that are most important at the top so visitors will actually see them.

Once your page is complete, you'll have to gain followers. This won't happen overnight, so be patient. At first, focus on simply completing your page and then adding content to it in the form of images and posts. Engaging content will give people a reason to follow your Facebook page.