Create A Facebook Page For Your Business: Step-By-Step Guide

As you’ve probably heard – Facebook is one of the leading social media/social networking platforms in the world. Being so large on a global scale means that there is ripe opportunity to promote your brand/product/service to the hundreds of millions of Facebook users. I’ve talked to quite a few small business owners in my area over the past year, and they all recognize the value and potential, but their main hold back is, “How do I do it?”

So although the following tutorial may be obvious to some of you, I hope that small business owners and other business representatives who stumble across this page will find use in it. I have a hunch that there are still thousands of people out there that would love to have a Facebook presence for their company, but just aren’t sure how to go about it.

Oh, and to get you really excited, let me drop a few stats for you to mull over, just in case you’re hesitant for whatever reason (you won’t be after this):

• More than 200 million active users
• More than 100 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day
• More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college
• The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older
• Average user has 120 friends on the site
• More than 4 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
• More than 30 million users update their statuses at least once each day
• More than 6 million users become fans of Pages each day (that could be you!)
• There are more than 30 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
• People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are almost 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.
• There are more than 150 mobile operators in 50 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products.

Step-by-step guide to creating a Facebook page for your small business

1. First things first, you’ll want to start this journey by going to the official “Create a Page” Facebook page. You can find that here.

2. Once you’re on the “Create A Page” page, you’ll be presented with an easy to understand menu where it asks you to choose a category for your business (if your category isn’t on the list, choose “other business”). You’ll then enter the name of your business, and then you’ll want to check the little box that asks if you’re authorized to create the page for your business, and then print your name as a signature.

It should look like the screenshot below:

3. After you have all the information filled out from above, click the blue “Create Page” button at the bottom.

4. Now, creating a business page on Facebook requires that you have a Facebook account. After you click the Create Page button, you’ll be taken to one of two screens. If you’re already a member of Facebook and logged in, you’ll be taken to your new page that you just created. If you’re not a member and/or not logged in, you’ll be taken to the following screen where you’ll follow instructions to sign in or create a new account if you’re brand new to Facebook.

Here’s what that screen looks like:

5. Again, if you’re brand new to Facebook, go ahead and create your new account and sign in. If you’re a member of Facebook, but perhaps just not logged in at the moment, go ahead and click the “I already have a Facebook account” button and sign in.

6. Okay, now we’re getting somewhere! Once you’re signed in and you’ve been taken to your newly created page, there are just a few more little things we need to do before you announce it to the world. Just in case you’re not sure, here is what your new page will look like:

7. Pretty plain and boring, right? So now what you need to do before going live with the page is edit your page and add some things like a company logo, hours of operation, and a description of your business.

You can do that by clicking the “Edit information” link on the right side of the page. After clicking that link, it will open up a box that will allow you to enter your address and your hours of operation. Go ahead and insert that information now.

8. When you’re done entering that info, lets get a photo or image online so that the big question mark box will look nicer. Click on the blue “photos” tab, and it will ask you to “create an album”. Go ahead and click that, and create a new album by entering the album name and description. You don’t have to upload a ton of pictures right now, we just want to get one up there because the first image you upload will serve as the photo that’s displayed on your company page. Follow the prompts to upload whatever photo or image you want, and upload it.

9. Now that you have a photo uploaded, go back to your newly created page, and click on the “Write something about (your company name)” link which is a couple links underneath your photo. It will allow you to write a description of your company. Be sure to write a good one, as this is one of the first things that people will see besides your photo.

10. Congratulations! You’re almost done creating your first business page on Facebook! Now that you have some basic information entered, a description of your business, and a photo or image, you’re read to publish your page to make it “live” and available for all to see.

You’ll probably notice a little box towards the top of your page like the one below:

11. Click on the red “publish this Page” link to push your page live onto the web.

OH YEAH!!

Your small business or company now has an official Facebook presence. How exciting!

Last but not least, you’ll want to look towards the bottom left corner of the page and click on the “Share” button. This will allow you to broadcast your new company page to your existing Facebook friends (assuming you’re already a Facebook member).

To help expose your page to  your customers, consider doing the following:

1. Adding an in-store sign that says “Become a fan of (company name) on Facebook!”
2. Add your Facebook URL to your invoices or customer emails.
3. Prominently display your Facebook URL on your website.
4. Add your Facebook URL to business cards, receipts, letterhead, etc…
5. Most importantly, once you start getting “Fans” of your new page, make sure to offer them occasional discounts and special deals that no one else can get without becoming a fan first. This will incentiveize your company page and build interest in it. Hold contests and other special promotions just for your fans.

Get creative, and use Facebook to leverage a brand new customer base (a large portion of which have plenty of disposable income). There have been many, many companies that have increased their bottom line significantly just from tapping into the massive social power of Facebook. You can do the same thing!

If you have any questions or comments, please contact me or leave them in the comments below – I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial