The time has passed when Facebook was a "good idea" for businesses to try. It's now essential to your inbound marketing strategy. Thing is, Facebook keeps changing how to set up Facebook business pages -- both on the large scale with the rollout of Facebook Timeline, and on a smaller scale with new features that are rolling out all the time.
Don't waste another day poking around aimlessly on Facebook, trying to figure out what the heck to do to get your Timeline up and running like a social networking pro. This post will break it down so literally anyone -- novices and experts alike -- can set up their brand's Facebook Timeline 100% correctly. Either follow this step-by-step video tutorial, or read the transcribed steps below, to get your business on Facebook today.
1) Choose a Classification
Navigate to the following URL in a new tab to create your business page on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php
Once there, choose from one of the following six classifications:
- Local business or place
- Artist, band, or public figure
- Company, organization, or institution
- Entertainment
- Brand or product
- Cause of community
This classification will help you rank for more relevant searches and provide relevant information fields on your page.
After selecting one of the six, choose the category you're in and fill out your business name (or if you selected one of the other options, your brand or company name). The business option also asks for further location information. Keep in mind that your category and name cannot be changed once your page is created. So type wisely, otherwise you’ll have to delete the entire page and start anew.
2) Complete Basic Information
Upload Photo
Facebook will now prompt you to upload the main photo for your page. This photo will appear as your icon every time you comment on a post or appear in news feeds. Ideally, it should be your company logo. The actual dimensions of your profile picture is 180X180. This will shrink on your page to appear as 125X125.
About Section
Next, you need to write your 'About' information. This small blurb will serve as the main 2-3 sentence description for your company. It will be on your main page, so make it descriptive but succinct. Be sure to include a link to your company website as well. Also ensure that this information differentiates your brand, making your page even more appealing to potential followers.
3) Use Your Admin Panel
Your admin panel is the main hub for managing your business page. It's filled with various features and options to optimize your page and your monitoring of that page.
Edit Page
The 'Edit Page' option in the upper right provides various options. The first option, 'Update Info,' allows you to update the basic information you provided earlier in the tutorial. This will also allow you to enter a description, which is an extended version of the 'About' information you entered earlier. Users only see the description by literally clicking 'About' on your business page, so you should feel comfortable sharing lengthier and more detailed information in your description.
You can also manage the roles of your page administrators. This allows you to invite various employees from your business to be administrators on your Facebook page in order to respond to comments or messages specific to their function, without giving them complete power over your page. The other options under 'Edit Page' allow you to manage your notifications and add page permissions.
Build Audience
Often, marketers get so excited they started a Facebook page that they invite users right away. But challenge yourself to think about a more strategic method for inviting users. First, you want your page filled with content. Then invite your brand advocates to start engaging with that content. Once your page has some interactions, invite more fans and contacts, and they'll be more interested to like the page when they see the buzzing hub it is. From that point, it's at your discretion if you'd like to use Facebook's advertising tools to further promote the page.
4) Fill the Page With Content
Cover Photo
With the introduction of Timeline came the introduction of your best visual real estate on your business page: the cover photo. The exact dimensions of this cover photo are 851X315. Be sure to select a creative horizontal image that will appeal to users who land on your page.
Custom Tabs
Facebook also allows you to have an endless amount of tabs on your page. As you can see in the image above, you can only customize four of them -- meaning only four can appear on the page before the user has to click the arrow to see the rest. Think critically about what you want to appear in these four slots, whether it's events, photos, groups, etc. Keep in mind that if you use third party applications, you should configure the tabs to be indexed on Facebook and not on the third party server.
Posts
When posting on your page, be sure to use a variety of content. What images would your audience like to see? What stats would they like to read? What links would they like to click? You can also click the little star to the upper right of any post to highlight it horizontally across your entire page. Not only will this make it look like you have a cover photo on your actual timeline of posts, but it will highlight the page as a milestone in your company history. Use this feature for product announcements, business anniversaries, and other major events pertinent to your brand.
Monitor
While having a gorgeous Facebook page is awesome, you want to ensure you're monitoring how fans are interacting with it. To the upper right of your Admin panel, you'll see all the private messages users are sending to your page. Meanwhile, the upper left and center of the panel shows all the posts users are liking and commenting on. Be sure to respond to comments and messages as needed to ensure your fans know you not only care about them, but to avoid the detrimental impact of ignoring these folks. In fact, according to Gartner, failure to respond via social channels can lead to up to a 15% increase in churn rate for existing customers.
5) Measure Your Efforts
At this point, you've built and shared a Facebook business page that accurately represents your business. Now you need to measure your efforts to ensure you're making valuable marketing decisions on Facebook. Click on the 'View Insights' option to the bottom-center of your Admin panel. You'll be able to monitor reach, engagement, and the like in order to help you grow and adapt your Facebook marketing efforts around what's working and what's not. And if you really want to spend time perfecting your Facebook content strategy, watch this brief tutorial on how to analyze exactly that.
And voila! You have a Facebook business page. Now go post interesting content and amass a loyal base of fans!
What additional tips do you have for marketers just getting started on Facebook?
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
John @ Internet Business Ideas 3:03 PM on February 10, 2010
I like the way you simplied the process of creating a facebook face. You will make a good teacher. (LOL)
Lily Zhu 4:36 PM on February 10, 2010
@John: Indeed, I've been teaching for several years. Thanks for your encouragement!
Best,
Lily Zhu
Bruce Blackwell 12:11 AM on February 11, 2010
Very informative - well done - a great resource. Keep up the good work.
Ricardo Bueno 4:55 AM on February 11, 2010
Lily: Great tutorial! I dig the way you broke it down...
David Diana 8:57 AM on February 11, 2010
Thanks! This has been very helpful and easy to follow.
Tim Ware 11:34 AM on February 11, 2010
The Static FBML app is a powerful tool for creating custom tabs on your FB Fan Page. In fact, I may have first read about it right here on hubspot! I've gone on to build a number of business application tabs and I created a pretty thorough Static FBML tutorial which would be a nice complement to this excellent post. Cheers....
Iflexion 10:17 AM on February 12, 2010
I would also recommend to use Ping.fm to post easily to twitter, facebook and some other networks at the same time. Awesome tool!
Kat 4:41 PM on February 12, 2010
What is the differences between being Local and Brand/Organization for your Fan Page? My inclination is to pick organization so that it is displayed nationally, but my business category, Education, is not a choice under Brand/Organization. Help.
dodong flores 9:27 AM on February 15, 2010
Great tip. I will try to integrate this technique too in some commercial websites I maintain...
Lily Zhu 10:24 AM on February 15, 2010
@Kat: have you had time to watch the video? I actually explained the difference between choosing between local and brand/org there. To summarize, the main difference lies in the kinds of info you can display. If you want to emphasize the kinds of services you provide and your mission instead of open hours or location, then brand seems to fit better. Were you able to find a category under Brand/Org similar to education (e.g. non-profits)? If there is no way for you to identify with the education category under brand/org, you might want to include Edu in your company name.
Hope it helps,
Lily Zhu
Kat 9:21 AM on February 16, 2010
Thanks Lily- I did check out the video. I am still wondering does choosing a local category effect who will be able to see or to join the page as a fan?
Lily Zhu 2:34 PM on February 17, 2010
@Kat: Since I've never published a local fan page, I suggest experimenting with the local fan page and ask a friend of yours from a different region (as indicated on his/her Facebook profile) to try becoming a fan.
Good luck,
Lily
Steve Cannon 2:40 PM on February 17, 2010
I tried to set up a Page for our business (I have 1 partner) I mistakenly set it up using my emial address and password. I want to change that to a common email for my partner and I to be able to access and populate the business site. How can I make that change?
Lily Zhu 2:51 PM on February 17, 2010
@Steve, a few points: 1. admin's e-mail address will not appear on the page, so there is no privacy concern; 2. if you'd like to use a common e-mail address to register the page, that e-mail address must be registered on Facebook in advance (i.e. you need to create a profile for that common e-mail address); 3. if you are only trying to get instant updates for both you and your partner, you can add your partner as an admin and he/she will automatically receive updates.
Hope this makes sense,
Lily
Steve Cannon 2:54 PM on February 17, 2010
Thanks Lily. Can my partner also create updates? Also how do I add my partner as an admin?
Lily Zhu 3:11 PM on February 17, 2010
@Steve: Click on "edit page" right under your page profile picture-->near the left bottom corner you will see "Admins", and click "add" next to that.
Lily
Raquel 4:02 AM on February 28, 2010
Hello Lily,
Thank you, your video was really easy to understand how Facebook pages work and I feel ready to proceed. I just have one question which you might be able to answer.
My website (it's an e-shop, and it just went live about 3 weeks ago) is based in Greece and it has English and Greek versions. How can I separate these 2 languages in the business page? I just don't feel it's right that a fan writes in English and another replies in Greek. Can I create 2 business pages, let’s say one as "ClickaGift in Greek" and the other as "ClickaGift in English". Does Facebook accept this?
Thanks in advance,
Regards
Raquel
Lily Zhu 8:17 AM on February 28, 2010
Hi Raquel,
I checked the language support options and here is my observation: 1) greece does not seem to be supported on Facebook as of now; and 2) the same business page doesn't seem to support multiple languages. Your logic definitely makes sense, and since Facebook has not yet developed such multi-language support, I think you can definitely create 2 pages and name them as you suggested above. Facebook accepts this: it doesn't care what name you give to your business page (there can even be overlaps) as long as you manage them well.
Hope this helps and good luck!
Lily
Raquel 2:54 AM on March 01, 2010
Hi Lily,
Thanks for your quick reply. You've answered my queston.
Thanks again for your help.
Regards
Raquel
Rod Fewer 6:31 PM on October 01, 2011
A very interesting approach to using Facebook. I would have never thought of it if I hadn't read your post. Thanks so much!
Scotthudson 1:32 AM on October 02, 2011
I really appreciate posts, which might be of very useful
The Marketing Blog
NavendraGanesha Pillai 5:51 AM on October 02, 2011
Nice valuable information... I would love to read more of your post buddy...
Thanks and Regards
Jacqueline Parham 7:33 PM on October 02, 2011
What's the difference between a company and brand page? Also, can I keep my personal profile and have a page for my business?
Thanks
Anum Hussain 8:04 PM on October 02, 2011
Thank you all for reading!
Navendra, if you simply click my name, posts I have written will appear; however, all HubSpot content is worth a good read :)
Jacqueline, the only difference between company and brand is how you rank in searches. A FB user will not notice what "type" of page you have.
And yes, your personal profile has no connection with your company page, you may have both accounts!
Jacqueline Parham 8:26 PM on October 02, 2011
Thanks for answering so quickly!
Josh B. 1:22 PM on October 03, 2011
Thanks for the video link and I found that your insights aligned with those presented in the chapter about Facebook in the "Branding Yourself" book by Eric Deckers and Kyle Lacy. Would you agree? This is a book I am reading for a University of Nevada, Reno management class on social business and media/networking. Please feel free to check out my blog and for anyone looking for a link to the aforementioned book go here http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=branding+yourself+book&hl=en&prmd=imvns&resnum=3&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&biw=1366&bih=667&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=4246695148361370963&sa=X&ei=dO6JTrqHJOqesQL5zIGxDw&ved=0CIYBEPMCMAA
http://www.netgen4u.com/about.html 2:59 PM on October 03, 2011
Thanks.. It was really helpful in creating a page for my company.
Jody 7:06 AM on October 04, 2011
Great article. Does anyone know how to integrate a database/e-shop on a FB page or it best just to link back to the website.
Thanks
Anum Hussain 11:05 AM on October 07, 2011
Sorry for the delayed response...
Josh, I'll have to check out the book!
Jody, just link back to your site. Hopefully you have analytics set up for your website, which it make it easier for you to track how many people clicked on that link from Facebook--helping you understand how important your Facebook business page is for your company.
HubSpot can also help track your website analytics very well if you have the software!
pat 10:30 PM on October 07, 2011
Hi, great info.
Is it possible to upload more than one persons contact list to your business page?
george pav 3:05 AM on October 09, 2011
hi
ive created a page and when i invite friends i get no respones. ive created the like button but no likes?
what have i donewrong?
regards george
Daniel Muguko 9:32 AM on October 09, 2011
This is a nice and helpful video.
Marry Shobasky 2:26 AM on October 15, 2011
Excellent 5 tips for creating facebook business page. Thank you Anum.
Anup 4:16 PM on October 18, 2011
Add the Facebook Store Finder app to your page to drive traffic to your business. Includes features such as store hours and driving directions. Support one or multiple locations. Great for non-profits and events too. http://www.facebook.com/storefinder
Lauren 2:03 AM on October 19, 2011
Oh, I so need help and cannot find answers anywhere. I set up a business page (public figure)for a friend and have three challenges: 1. I cannot figure out how to "like" other pages; FB says "Use Facebook As Page under Account, and then liking other pages that relate to your page." Where is the 'Account' function? I have searched everywhere. 2. When searching for the Page, the title comes up with "Page" in light grey underneath. How do I change "Page" to some other description? 3. Also, a "Like" button does not appear to the right on the search, either.
Any help is most appreciated!
Warmly, Lauren
Susy Boyter 3:10 PM on October 19, 2011
I created the page following guidelines from facebook that I needed to create the page using my profile. But I want to invite businesses to like my page, not be part of my personal profile. I don't see where I can do that. I don't see where I can separate my profile from business. I know I can click on "use facebook as "business page", etc. But I use my iphone app a lot for personal and it's already happened. Posts that should be business are on personal, etc. I cannot seem to get answers from facebook. HELP
Kayla 4:22 PM on October 19, 2011
Why even take the time to create a custom Facebook landing page? You should know its advantages and why it is so important for a business to have! http://bluewheelmedia.com/make-a-facebook-landing-page
Erin 3:27 PM on October 25, 2011
I'm having the same issue as Lauren stated above:
1. I cannot figure out how to "like" other pages; FB says "Use Facebook As Page under Account, and then liking other pages that relate to your page." Where is the 'Account' function? I have searched everywhere.
Help?
Thanks - Erin
Erin 3:45 PM on October 25, 2011
In response to Lauren's question about figuring out how to show your "liked" pages - try this. For some reason I couldn't see the "search box" while I was logged-in to my facebook page. So I googled a page I wanted to "like" while I was still signed in. After clicking on the link to that page in the google browser, I scrolled down to the sidebar and clicked, "Add to my page favoites" - a pop-up box should then appear asking which page you want to add that like to (this is only if you have multiple pages). After specifying such, I went back to my FB page and BAM - the like sidebar had magically appeared. Hope this works for you!
Best,
Erin
Search Engine and Optimization 5:45 AM on October 26, 2011
video play an important role to give immediate understanding.INFORMATIVE VIDEO SHARING.After watching the above video anyone can create a fan page on Facebook.Thanks for sharing
Alex 9:40 PM on October 26, 2011
Hey
I am having a bit if confusing at the moment with Facebook
This may sound really stupid but I'd like to be sure
I already have a personal facebook account and I (within that account) created a page and set that to local business, is that me setting up a business page?
Or do I need to set up a new business page from the home page of Facebook (while logged out)?
I ask this question because I have set up this page for my business and someone else is telling me Facebook for business is different from a Facebook Page.
Please reply
Thanks
Anum 12:06 AM on October 27, 2011
^Nope, you can make your business page from your personal account--no difference!
Facebook 4:19 AM on October 03, 2012
Great video, I'm sure everyone will be able to create their own after viewing it. Bad for us, marketers, hehe :)
I have myself created at least a dozen of fan pages however the little cheet sheet with the dimensions will come very handy! :)
Portik Zalán 5:03 AM on October 03, 2012
Can i include my website address to the cover photo?
Btw great video, thanks. :)
Brian 11:50 AM on October 03, 2012
tagging anyone create a business page and people cannot tag you?
seems we are having this problem found an answer on FB but it didn't work
khushbu 2:21 AM on October 04, 2012
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Peter Colbert 12:13 AM on October 06, 2012
When I try to create a business account this error message appears "Please enter a valid email address" - I'm using info@jobmap.com. Could someone help?
Rohit kaushal 8:45 AM on October 07, 2012
Absolute great stuff will surely recommend to all of my friends.
Sandy Nute 9:08 AM on October 08, 2012
Can I change a private FB page to a business one?
If not can I transfer the information from the private page to the business page?
Mark Harrison 4:18 PM on October 08, 2012
Message to Peter about the email issue. Try changing the info to a real name like peter@jobmap.com. This should work. From memory I believe you cannot have info, sales etc being in the email address.
Peter Colbert 10:00 PM on October 08, 2012
Hi Mark, cheers. Unfortunately it didn't work. Keep trying. On another side-issue, one of my staff set up a FB page for one of the coy's I own and has left. No record of anything but I can see it on FB. Is there any way I can contact FB about this?
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