Creating A Facebook Business Page

    1. Benefits of Using Facebook for a Business
      • Increased exposure to potential Customers — With 2.38 billion monthly active users as of the first quarter of 2019, Facebook is the biggest social network worldwide. (source)
      • Decrease marketing expenses — It costs exactly zero dollars to start a Facebook Business Page
      • Reach a highly targeted audience — The people who follow your Page are people who are already interested in what you have to offer.
      • Facebook insights — managing the insights on your Page will allow you to better see what your followers are truly interested in, and where to focus more of your efforts.
      • Increase your website traffic and SEO — your Business Page will lead potential Customers back to your website.
      • Mobile ready — Facebook’s platform is already optimized for mobile devices, which is helpful because more people are using their phones to access the world wide web.
    2. How to Manage Your Facebook Business Page
      • Post Often — There are several schools of thought on how often to post, ranging from at least 3 times per week to 8 times per day.  The key is to post often enough to keep your followers engaged, and not so often you annoy them.  Facebook users 50-65+ don’t tend to spend as much time on Facebook as the 40s and under crowd, so if your following is made up of mostly the older group then you can post less often.  For a more active younger audience you should post at least once per day.
      A good rule of thumb to follow is to keep your sales posts limited to 20% of less of your total posts.  You want to focus on sharing engaging helpful content that will keep your Page Fans interested.  Too many sales posts makes a Page seem spammy.
      • Respond to Private Messages within 24 hours.
      • Check your Page insights to figure out the best time of day for your most important posts.  You want to post when the highest number of your Page Fans are active on Facebook.
      • Follow the competition.  — Navigate to your Page (not your Personal Profile, but your Business Page) and click INSIGHTS, then scroll down and add other similar Pages to watch on Facebook.  This will give you ideas for content to post.  Allow yourself to be inspired, but don’t be a copy cat.  Feel free to share other Page posts to your Page too!

 

How To Build A Facebook Business Page

  1.  Log onto Facebook with your Personal Account.
    You MUST have a personal account in order to build and manage a Business Page.  You do not need to use your personal account for interacting with people, if you choose not to do so, but there must be a personal account attached to your Business Page.From the Facebook Menu in the upper right corner, click on Manage Pages/Create PageFollow the prompts and select the appropriate options through the creation process.
  2. What you will need to get started.
    • Page Name
    • Profile Photo
    • Cover Photo
    • Call to Action — what do you want people to do when they visit your Page?

Start Building and Managing your Page.
• Photo Dimensions:
Your photos should be 180 x 180 pixels for the profile (this photo will show as a circle), and 828 x 465 pixels for the cover photo.

• Turn on Page Messaging
From your Business Page go to SETTINGS –> GENERAL –> MESSAGES –> EDIT
Then select “Allow people to contact my Page privately by showing the Message button.” Then click SAVE CHANGES.

• Types of Posts
Choose from going Live, creating an Event, making a Sales Offer, posting a Job opportunity, posting a photo, creating a poll etc.

Don’t be afraid to go Live!  It’s one of the best ways to get engagement on your Page and connect with your Followers.  Normally, when you post on your Page, your Page Fans will not receive a notification.  But with a Live Video your Fans who are active on Facebook when you go Live will receive a notification and a prompt to watch you!   Your Live video can be a simple “behind the scenes” look at your business, or an “unboxing video where you show new product that has arrived.  You and your Fans will be able to see new items for the first time together!  You could go live to announce a sale or current promotional offer.  Pay attention to other Live videos you see on Facebook to help get ideas for your own Page.

• Fill Out the ABOUT Section of your Page.
– Name
– Username
– Category
– Contact Info
– Directions and Map
– Page Info
– Story
– Team Members
– Add a Menu
– List your Services
– Showcase Products with a Shop Section

• Types of Notifications
– Likes / Reactions
– Comments
– Shares
– Follows
– Reviews / Ratings
– Messages

Generally comments don’t require a response, but be sure to read them in case someone asks a question you need to respond to.  It’s also good to reply to positive comments so people see that you engage and interact with your followers.

Follows are notifications that another Business Page is following your Page as shown above in the “Follow the Competition” image.

Encourage people to submit a review and/or rating.

It’s best to respond to messages within 24 hours.

 

• Review Your Insights

Paid Reach is money spent to gain likes, comments, shares, or views.
Organic Reach refers to likes, comments, shares, and views that occurred without any payment for ads or boosts.

Page Summary

Best Time of Day to Post
From Insights click on “POSTS” to view how many of your followers are active on Facebook at what times of day.  This tells you what time of day is best for your most important posts.  For FACES ours is pretty steady, but many Pages will see a steep peak around 8 or 9pm.  Some will see that peak around 5 or 6pm.  Check your Page’s insights to view the most active time of day for your followers.  For FACES it tends to be early evening, as shown below.  Hovering over each day, above the graph, will show you how your audience varies each day of the week. 

 

Insight Categories to View
Promotions (paid ad results)
Followers (how many, where from, age, gender etc)
Likes
Reach / Engagement (reactions, comments, shares)
Page Views
Actions on Page (clicks on directions, phone number, website etc)
Posts (reach, post clicks, engagements etc)
Events (engagement, tickets, audience, views)
Videos (views, minutes watched, top videos)
People (demographics of followers, people reached, people engaged)
Messages (total conversations)

• Best Advice:  BE SOCIAL
Respond to everything as soon as possible
Like, Comment and Share other Pages’ or website’s content
Ask questions, create polls, create contests
Make a schedule for types of posts and when to post them
Schedule your posts so you can post content for the day / week all at once
Be sure to spread posts out at least one hour apart
Have a policy in place for removing explicit content posted by Page Followers either on the Community page, or in comments of a Page post.

Think about the Pages on Facebook that inspire you and keep you engaged, and WHY.  Use that as a guide for your own Page.

 

 

** The majority of this content was written by Katie Ward, Marketing Specialist at MidAtlantic Farm Credit, for our Get Social Delmarva social media training seminar.  Additional content and images by Rebecca Heriz , Social Media Marketer and Coach.  **