5 Essential Tips to Start a Facebook Page from Scratch

Starting a Facebook Business Page for a brand new business or venture can be challenging. Not sure where to start? We’ve compiled the essential things you need to know to set your Page up for success. Here are a few simple tips to get you started:

 

Optimize Facebook Business Page

TIP: Optimize your Facebook page so that it looks smooth and professional before you start promoting it.

In a nutshell, here are the important things to check off your list:

  1. Visually appealing cover sized photo - ideal size is 851 x 351 pixels.
  2. Your logo as your profile photo - ideal size is 360 x 360 pixels.
  3. Keyword-rich ‘About Us’ page. Your About page is indexed in Google searches.
  4. Minimum of 5 posts and 5 photos to start.

TIP: A good place to start is to ask your friends to follow your page.

This works because as you post things, your friends will like and comment on those posts, and in doing so will expose your page to new audiences. Those new people may end up being your future customers. So even though your friends may not be your customers, it is typically the easiest place for a new business to start. If you’re comfortable with this, then start there.

There are a few great ways to do this. You can use the “Invite friends to like this page” Link on the top right of your page or share your business page on your personal Facebook account. You can also include a link to your Facebook page in your email signature saying “follow us on Facebook.” If you use more than one social media account for one business, you can put little social media icons at the bottom of your email and say something like “Connect with us.”

TIP: Link your personal profile to your business page.

Boost Facebook Organic Reach

This is a simple thing to do, yet many business owners neglect it. If people are searching and finding your personal profile on Facebook, you want to make it easy for them to find your business page from there. When people list where they work and it’s not properly linked to their Facebook page, a weird “Community Page” is created with the same name and a little suitcase icon. People will like that page rather than your real Facebook page, and so none of your carefully created content will show up in their feed.

To make sure you link your page properly, navigate to your personal profile’s About section and edit the ‘Work and Education’ field. Any page name with the “suitcase” icon is a generic link. To unlink the “dummy page” from your profile, simply delete the position from your ‘Work and Education’ section in the About area (click Edit in the About section), and then add in the correct Facebook page. Usually if you start typing the name of your page in the Company area it will autofill it, but that occasionally doesn’t happen. If your page isn’t showing up, simply try again later or use a different browser to see if that will help.

Also, make sure that your Work and Education is Public, not just visible to friends. You can adjust that in the little field to the left of the ‘save changes’ button.

TIP: Like or comment on relevant articles, groups or posts on Facebook.

For example; a company selling kiln-dried firewood might want to follow the official Michigan DNR page. If they see a post about not moving firewood, it would be an excellent idea for them to like that post, and then comment how "as a forester we’ve seen the danger firsthand of forest devastation and that is one reason kiln-dried firewood is growing in popularity - no bugs.” Or something along those lines. The point is to become involved in the conversation and establish yourselves as the authority on the subject. People will listen, your voice will be heard, they'll learn to think of you as the experts, and your web presence will grow. This will put weight and authority behind your name, paving the way for future advertising.

TIP: Use Facebook’s Page Plugin (formerly the Like Box) on your blog or website.

A like button next to your blog posts is great for getting your content shared, but the Page Plugin will help you boost the likes on your page

Once you’ve crossed each of these tips off of your list, you’ve set yourself up for some great organic growth. To learn more about the next steps of the process which include creating great content, using subtle marketing, and more, see our article on How to Boost Your Facebook Organic Reach.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *