Its been more than 10 years since Facebook first started and it had now progressed from being a simple social networking platform to one that provides marketeers an opportunity to reach out to their target audience. With 1.65 billion monthly active users, it is no surprise that Facebook has turned into a go-to platform for digital marketers and as of 2016, 40 million business pages have been created. However, only 2 million of these pages are active advertisers.
If you’re a business owner & do not have a Facebook Business Page, it is essential for you to step onto the bandwagon as soon as possible. Crafting out a business page allows you to increase your online presence & it is a platform for you to differentiate yourself from your competitors! It may take some time to build that differentiation online, but it is achievable. Start building your own Facebook Business Page with these simple steps!
1. Choose your Classification
The very first step to creating a Facebook Business Page is to identify what kind of page reflects your business. Be sure to choose the classifications provided by Facebook wisely, as you wont be able to change it once your page has been created. Refer to the image below for the set of fields that comes with the different classifications.
2. Input your Basic Information & Add some Photos
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One of the most important section for your Facebook business page, is the ‘About’ page. Be sure to fill in concise yet informative details about your business you want to communicate to your consumers. Specify the types of products or services that you are offering so that visitors understand what kind of business you are running.
It is important to also note that providing incomplete or misleading information will affect your business page’s credibility and may result in the loss of potential customers and a decrease in traffic.
Another cool plus point that Facebook offers is the option to have a unique url. This could be your business’s name or something that is more memorable than the one created for you. Once your page is public and has at least 25 likes, claim your unique name following this format: www.facebook.com/YourDesiredName.
Visuals:
Another important element of a Facebook Business Page are the visuals that will make up visitors’ first impression of your business page. For starters, the profile photo should ideally be your company logo and the cover photo should be visually interesting so as to draw the attention of your visitors.
Here are some dimensions to note before uploading your images:
- Profile photo: 180x180px but is displayed at 160x160px
- Cover photo: at least 851x315px
At this point, you should have successfully set up your business page and looking forward to an influx of ‘Likes’ or engagement, but it seems like you are not getting much? Most businesses will then assume running Ads will that much needed quick fix. Hang onto that thought!
After you have created your page, there is barely any content that your visitors can potentially engage with. Hence, you need to start building content! Share about the solutions and/services that uniquely represents your business, check out your competitors’ pages and learn about the content they are sharing or introduce a fun element to your page such as behind-the-scene content and your team mates!
3. Produce Content to capture the attention of your Audiences
Facebook supports many different post formats such as status updates, links, photos, videos, events, check ins and more. This gives you the ability to interact with your fans via different content formats and to promote engagement. Studies have shown that pairing content with eye-catching visuals are more well received and inevitably garners more interest from users. Also, creating an online persona that resonates with your brand voice is also one way to boost content interaction.
Now that we have started creating content, it is necessary to implement a couple of strategies to ensure that your content reaches your target audience. Start building your own editorial calendar! Here’s a great template by HubSpot to start with: Social Media Calendar You can also work out the optimal timings to post content by yourself. This means that you will need to craft and monitor the content you are planning to post and taking note of the time, day and engagement level of each post. In time, you will notice a certain pattern that works for your business page!
Once you have established how much content you can and want to share on your business page, Facebook has a function that allows you to schedule your posts beforehand, making it incredibly convenient to manage! This also allows you to prepare and strategise content ahead of time, which means you will have more time to focus on the other aspects of your business.
Last but not least, keep in mind that no matter how amazing your services/solutions may be, continual engagement with your followers is essential. In today’s digital landscape, 9 out of 10 users are drawn to reading and engaging in interesting content that they can relate to. Remember to always keep your page content fresh and updated!
4. Build a Fan Base
Now that your Facebook Business Page is in place, it is time to build a fan base that can potentially turn into your loyal customers. It is time to build a rapport with your followers, who will in turn become an advocate for your business. Facebook is one of the most sought after platforms for businesses and consumers to have a two-way communication. Learn to do this with your followers through the comments features on each post and attend to their queries.
Another point to note is to develop a your own social media voice, for your brand. First, think about an adjective that would best describe your brand’s personality, and then set a tone or two that embodies the essence of your brand. After that, think about the kind of language you would like to use; is it serious? funny? savvy? simple? Finally, you will need to identify the purpose of creating such content; is it to educate? entertain? to sell? to engage? With your voice in place, you will have a clear picture of how to further develop your content on social media and build a fan base.
The main objective is for your followers to eventually be inspired to advocate your brand. Imagine having a whole community of opinion leaders!
5. Measure your growth
Once you have successfully established your social media presence, it is now time to look into those fancy pansy metrics. All businesses will need to look at how such marketing efforts can make a difference to your ROIs. Having said that, Facebook has an ‘Insights’ tab which allows you to view all the metrics of your business page. It provides a rather comprehensive table of data, but, if you are looking at tracking your growth from start till end, you will need to look at other tracking platforms such as Google Analytics.
In general, Facebook Insights shows all the metrics in regards to your business page for selected periods. This includes the overall gains and loses of fans, the total number of people your page has reached through paid and organic efforts, and also the detailed demographics and nationalities of those who visit your site. There are more metrics available and Facebook has made several changes over the years to provide more comprehensive data. You will be able to use these data to measure the effectiveness of your content and your campaigns, which propels growth.
In Conclusion
All in all, it is relatively straightforward to craft out a notable Facebook Business page. The trick lies in your tone, content, interactions and how consistent you are in managing your page. Once you have that all under your belt, you will be able to reach out to the 1.65 billion active Facebook users! So what are you waiting for? Create your Facebook Business page now!
Not convinced about how Facebook can benefit your business? Drop us a note at https://www.purpleclick.com/contact/ and we will be happy to share insights about Social Media Marketing and how it can work for your business.
