Starting the Facebook fan page Journey

Creating a Facebook fan page may seem like an intimidating and scary thought for companies just starting out on the social media highway, this blog post will offers you step-by-step instructions on how to set up that initial Facebook fan page learnt from my time on a Search & Social Media Marketing course at Salford University in order to set up my own social media strategy for my company NIBS Group. This blog post will also cover some of the reasons why you should set one up and why its interactive elements make it such a great tool for business promotion.

You may already use Facebook for personal reasons such as keeping up with your family & friends or sharing photos, but the idea of running a business page on the world’s largest social network might still seem intimidating. Businesses of all sizes can both obtain value from Facebook pages – "for free"! On the one hand, big corporations can display a more accessible and personal image by promptly answering customer inquiries and developing a community around their products and services by for example posting fun photos or videos.

On the other hand, small businesses and start-ups can expand their customer base by reaching out to their prospects and by doing what small businesses do best – be personable and knowing your customers in person. This could be around customer engagement which developed around specialist content that is of interest to your customers, thus lowering other marketing-related costs.

Simply put, Facebook business pages are easy to use, flexible and interactive – all great reasons to justify setting one up today. You are advised to watch the video below and explore more Facebook features on your own to take advantage of this free, effective tool!

It takes 5 minutes to create a Facebook fan page – but a lifetime to deliver it

Important: Knowing the waters before developing your social media presence is essential, this includes finding niche keywords used that relate to your business. Facebook Trends also helps facilitate ideas on common search terms pertaining to your business. As a business you also have to make a decision to allocate adequate time to maintaining of this new channel that you will offer to your customers – it takes a short time to create a Facebook fan page but potentially a lifetime to deliver it...it takes time, long term effort and patience.

Although Facebook pages set-up is free to you now, you will be committing time and effort in a platform which is hosted on a third party and although at the moment there are no charges to businesses Facebook long term have to make money too! However, assuming that you know that the demogaphics that you are looking for are on Facebook – go to Google Adplanner to get latest stats… there are few reasons why you should not try Facebook Page for your business! Remember – that you can delete your page within two mouse clicks so if you don’t like what you see you can always leave Facebook when you want (to do that go to Edit Page > Delete Page that simple)!!!

Advantages of Branding Your Business on Facebook

So, you are still reading this this! Good! This means you have the courage to see if Facebook works for you! Below are just some of the reasons why you others have joined Facebook and you should consider joining it too. Facebook…

• Acts as a contemporary reference resource for your site.
• Helps gain relevant traffic to your site; this means your referral traffic can be increased.
• Facilitates relevant link exposure for your site and services & products.
• Supports your search engine optimization campaign.
• Doubles your SERP listing chances, which means this will improve your visibility in search engine results.
• Can reduce off-line advertising costs by targeting your prospects more specifically with Facebook ads.
• Brands and helps you to engage with your customers and hence help in maintaining positive reputation online.

For companies wanting a more professional image for their Facebook fan page, companies such as NIBS Spectrum offer a social media set-up service which gives businesses the chance to get professionally created Facebook fan pages which are designed to compliment your overall company brand image as is shown in the example below:

To set up your account

Right, are you ready to give it a go? It should take you no longer than 5 minutes!

1. Go to www.facebook.com.

Create a profile. If you already have a personal profile on Facebook and don’t work your work profile to be associated with this it might be worth creating another "work" related identify for you.

Once signed in, Click on Ads and Pages:

Then click + Create Page. To create a page for a celebrity, band or business” Determine the appropriate category for your business by clicking the relevant category:

Now, enter the name of the business. Read the Facebook Pages Terms and then sign your authorisation by ticking the relevant box and click on Get Started.

2. Add main image and tag line.

Hover your mouse over the big question mark:

and then click on Change Picture. Upload your logo or a photo of your business or product here. {This will be your business’ Facebook image.} Under this image, click on “Write something about . . .” This is where you would put your tag line or a brief description of your business.

3. Edit your Basic Information.

Click on the Basic Information tab:

and then Edit your company information. The amount and type of information that you are able to input here depends on the category you selected for your business. Once complete press the Save Changes button.

4. Upload photos.

Click on the Photos tab:

and upload photos of your business and/or your products. If you’d like, you can create multiple albums to group images together by category.

5. Edit default landing tab.

Within Manage Permissions, decide where you would like your fans and non-fans to land when they go to your Facebook profile:

6. Congratulations! You now have a Facebook business page!

When you are satisfied with the appearance of your new page you can invite others to like it! Once you create you page it will be immediately publicly available for all to see on the internet!

7. Become a fan.

You should become your first fan so that you can experiment with different posts and get a feel for the functionality of your new page.

8. Tell your customers or clients about your new Facebook page and encourage them to become a fan.

The more fans you have, and the more that your fans interact with your page, the more you will be able to take advantage of the viral nature of Facebook and its power for unlimited "free" advertising.

9. Get a Facebook Vanity URL

In order to get a Vanity URL (in other words the company name as your Facebook URL for example facebook.com/MyCompany) – your page needs at least 25 fans to have a user name, so this is your first challenge to get 25 people to like your page! Once you reach 25 people go to Basic Information and set your name.

Some Quick Facebook Tips and activities to engage your audience:

• Learn from your competition: Do research & learn how the emerging business patterns exist already.
• Keep natural: Facebook users are very alert and with it, let things flow naturally.
• Talk officially unofficial: Remember to update your readers with topical news but deliver it in language that is interesting and easily understandable.
• Keep the salesmanship down: Though networking and community building are the two prime jobs of social media, it is ok to pepper in some relevant service news. You can announce your offers discounts in a clear concise manner but be tactful in how you do it.
• Talk about topics related to your business: No point in talking about ‘X’ if you’re doing business in ‘Y’. Simply put – you won’t be speaking to the people listening to you and will add followers that may not care about the majority of your posts.
• "Follow" and "Become a Fan": It depends on what kind of people follow you or become your fans and what kind of information you release.

One Great Facebook Feature:

One great feature of Facebook – if you have a company blog is that you can upload your blog posts to your Facebook profile automatically:

• Once on your Facebook page, click on Edit Page.
• Under Apps, click on Notes > Edit Settings.
• On the Edit Settings pop up box click add and then Okay:

• Now click Go to Application next to notes. Click on the bottom left Edit import settings

• Now enter the URL of your blog feed and click Start Importing:

• Please note that there were recently (April 2011) some glitches with Facebook and the notes import feature does not always work…

Now, how did you find creating your fan page, did you find it easy or was it difficult?

I would love to hear from you, please contact me on Twitter

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