Getting Started with Facebook: Setting Up a Business Facebook Page

Get all you can out of Facebook

If you are one of the 300 million Facebook users, you probably use Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family, play games and access new, information and videos of dancing babies on YouTube.

You may not be getting everything you can out of Facebook, however, if you have not yet set up a Facebook page for your business. While it is true that most people go on Facebook in order to connect with friends, they do also find business sites that their friends recommend or that they find by doing a search. But doing business on Facebook is a much softer sell than on your own company website or advertising, so it pays to do it right from the beginning.

First, the basics…Here’s how to set up your business page on Facebook:

1. Go to www.facebook.com, and log in if the system has not already automatically logged you in.
2. Go down to the bottom of the page and click on Advertising, the click Pages and the Create a Page.
3. Select the type of business you have. The choices are a) local, b) brand, product or organization, and c) artist, band or public figure. Choose the first one if your business is bound by a geographic area, like a dentist, attorney, or restaurant. If you have an online business or a business that can serve customers across the US and/or multiple countries, choose the second one. The last choice is self explanatory.
4. Fill in as much information in the next fields and screens as possible, including your company logo. If your company has any RSS blog feeds, relevant videos, images, or other content, include it. Google will reward you with a higher rank, the more information you have on your page.
5. Add Facebook applications to your page. One of the most popular is Social RSS which will feed your blog content into your Facebook page. See “5 Essential Apps for Your Business’s Facebook Fan Page” on Mashable.com for more with instructions about how to use them.
6. If you don’t have a blog (and if you don’t, shame on you! You need one!), then you will need to populate your page with information that is useful and interesting to your target audience. If possible, the content should be yours to show your expertise, but you can also augment it by adding links to other people’s articles that are on topic.
7. Now it is time to promote your page. You can only directly promote it to your own contacts (which you can mine from your personal page), by clicking the Invite Friends link on the left side of the page. Write a little promo telling people what they can get from your page.  As you add more friends on your personal page, remember to send out more invitations to your business page. Facebook will automatically give them a link to get there. You can also promote it via email, on your website, printed marketing materials, business cards, advertising and other social media like Twitter and LinkedIn.
8. Once people have signed up by “liking” your page, give them a reason (like your fantastic content, freebies and discounts) to pass it along to their other colleagues or contacts.
9. Update your page often, whether it with a feed from your blog or other status updates to keep your fans’ interest.
10. Try to involve them in your little mini-community by starting discussions on the Discussions tab and asking them to interact with you. Inject your personality in your page, and don’t be afraid to include some interesting or funny posts that are not entirely related to your business (as long as they are in good taste).