Did you know that it is against Facebook rules to use a personal profile to advertise your business (for example, a personal profile called “North Wales Website Design”)? Facebook reserve the right to delete such profiles – which wouldn’t look too good to your business if your profile was deleted randomly!
You can tell the difference between a page and a profile very easily – with a page you will be asked to “Like”, while a profile you will need to “+Add Friend”. Every Facebook page is linked to a personal profile; however it is not possible for you to see which profile has created the page, giving anonymity to the creator/author (that’s you!).
To create a page, click the down arrow in the far top right on your Facebook homepage, and then click “Create Page”. You will then be asked to select the type of page you are looking to create (local business, entertainment, company, brand etc.) – you can change this later on once your page has been set up, so don’t worry if you think you make a mistake.
Put your business name as the page name, keeping it simple and within your brand. Most people will check the page name before reading a post that comes up on their timeline, so you want to avoid anything that is vague and doesn’t necessarily describe what it is you do.
The most important section to your new page is the “About” section – this is indexed by Google so is a very important tool for search engine optimisation. When searching for a business through Google, the Facebook page will quite often also appear in the search results, sometimes even above the actual website itself. While this is the most important section, you can edit this once your page is set up properly.
It is important to fill in as much as possible, but whatever you do remember to provide a full address, phone number, email address and of course your website address! You can edit most of what Facebook asks you to input later on once your page is set up.
- Your cover photo is the first picture people will see when visiting your website – make this something that sells your page, and is of high quality. The size is 851pixels by 315pixels, if you create a cover photo that is larger than this, Facebook will automatically resize and crop to fit properly. We suggest you change your cover photo every couple of months to keep your page fresh, but not too often!
- Your profile photo is also important – we have used our logo as when you post to your page, it is the logo that other users will see on their own timeline. Try and keep your profile picture within brand. Make sure your profile picture is larger than 160×160 pixels – you can edit your thumbnail to resize and crop. This we would suggest you never change – your followers will get used to simply looking at your profile picture and spotting you straight away. Change it and it may cause confusion!
- Once your page has over 25 likes, you can get yourself what is called a “Vanity URL”. For example, we have facebook.com/gwecambrianweb – this is easier to remember and much easier for you to advertise! If you don’t get your Vanity URL when you have 25 likes, your Facebook link will look more like this: www.facebook.com/pages/yourpagename/123456789876
Check out our other blog posts (including Facebook Page Essentials) for some handy social media tips, advice and rules!