1 - Create your Facebook presence as a Page, not a Person
This is perhaps the most important thing you can do when setting up a Facebook Page for your business. Facebook has two different types of ‘members’ – Profiles/Timelines (for people/individuals) and Pages (for businesses/brands). Profiles should only be used by individuals, whereas Pages should only be used by businesses (of any size).Creating a Page allows you to use the huge number of features that Facebook has on offer to help you keep in touch with your fans/customers, along with the ability to measure ‘Insights’ to ensure your content is reaching the right people.
Note: As of October 2011, Facebook allows users to convert existing Profiles into Pages (automatically converting Friends into Fans in the process).
2 - Select a Username
Facebook allows each Page to be reached via a short, memorable Username – usually a shortened version of the business or brand’s name. This makes it easy to reference your Facebook Page via other mediums, such as radio ads or print. For example, ours is facebook.com/magnumltd.Facebook may require your Page to accumulate 25 ‘Likes’ or to exist for a few days before allowing you to choose a Username.
3 - Use Facebook as Page
Once you’ve created your Page, it’s possible to interact with other Pages by switching your current browsing session from your personal Profile to your Page. There’s a link in the top right of the navigation bar, aptly named ‘Use Facebook as Page’. Clicking this will allow you to switch to any of the Pages for which you hold Admin rights, after which you can browse Facebook as your Page.
What does this mean exactly?
For starters, you can now head to other Pages (such as affiliated businesses/suppliers etc.) and Like them. These Likes will show up on your Page, for everyone to see. They can be a great way to build visitor traffic if you can get other Pages to Like yours too.
When you’re using Facebook as your Page, every action that you take will be attributed to your Page rather than your personal Profile. This includes anything that you share or post so it’s the best way to ‘push’ content to your customers/fans.
4 - Utilise Social Plugins
Social Plugins provide an integral link between your website and your Facebook Page.See the ‘Like’ button at the beginning of this article? That’s linked directly to Facebook, allowing our readers to effortlessly share this content with their Facebook friends. It’s a win-win situation because not only does it make it easy for our readers to share interesting (we hope) content on Facebook, it also helps to drive traffic to our website via those who see the reader’s posting on the reader’s Profile.
Social Plugins are not as easy to set up as other Facebook features, so get in touch with us if you’d like help with this. There are a number of other Social Plugins, such as Comments (which allows users to comment directly on your website, via the Facebook platform).
5 - Reward Your Fans
So you’ve got a steady flow of Fans and your Page is going well. What’s your strategy for retaining these Fans and keeping them engaged?It’s a great idea to reward your Fans with tangible offers such as ‘10% off your order when you use this Facebook-exclusive code’. This will ensure Fans don’t get ‘Page fatigue’ and will also help in gaining new Fans as the rewards are spread via word-of-mouth on Facebook.
