How to Set Up Your Facebook Business Page Our Personal Story

In 2003, Mark Zuckerberg created a simple software program called Facemash, allowing his fellow students at Harvard to compare two photos and select who was hotter. (Basically, it was Tinder without the swipe right.) And as we all know, that application eventually grew into Facebook—the social media platform giant that today boasts 1.28 billion daily active users and more than 50 million brands.

Last month, I finally created a Keyhole Marketing business page.

What took me so long—especially after writing about the benefits of creating a Facebook strategy here, here, here and here? I don’t like to run after the newest shiny object, and I prefer to wait 13 years to see if something has staying power.

Just joking. Truth be told, I put off setting up my own Facebook business page because I didn’t want one more thing to manage and one more thing to distract me from billable work. But I always knew that wasn’t the best marketing decision. And after recently meeting with my SEO colleague, I was finally persuaded that the search benefits (i.e., sending social signals back to Google would directly affect my search engine rankings and increase referral traffic and content exposure) would far outweigh the time management downsides.

So if you’re like I was and still holding out on creating a Facebook page for your business—or if your page needs a refresh—I documented my journey so you can learn from my process:

The Mechanics of Setting Up A Facebook Business Page

This is a pretty simple process. Start here or you can follow these steps:

1. Go to your personal Facebook newsfeed, and choose “Pages” on the lefthand column.
2. Choose the green “Create” button on the righthand side.
3. From here, choose a classification for your business page. We chose “Company, Organization or Institution” because we are a company, after all.
4. Finally, choose a category and name your Facebook page. Pro tip: choose your name wisely, as Facebook only allows you to change your name and URL once, and it’s a difficult and tedious process.
5. Fill in the details.

The Details of Setting Up A Facebook Business Page

Once you’ve got your page all setup, the magic is in the details. This is where the fun begins:

Profile Picture

Company logo or mug shot? This is a very important decision. I went with a mug shot, because I feel like my brand best resonates with me as a person, rather than a graphic. This picture will serve as the main visual icon of your Facebook page, appearing in search results and alongside any comments you publish. The recommended size is 180 x 180 pixels.

Cover Photo

Your cover photo is typically a branded image to help draw attention to your Facebook page. The dimensions are 851 x 315 pixels. Pro tip: Initially, we added text to our cover photo. But then we quickly realized the formatting didn’t work on mobile. Be sure to check before publishing!

Call-To-Action

Choose a strong call-to-action button in the top, righthand side of your page. This is the action you want people to take when they first come to your page. Do you want them to “Shop Now”? Or would you rather have them visit your website? We chose “Contact Us” so new people to the page know we’re easily accessible.

About Section + Mission Statement

This section will serve as the main 2-3 sentence description of your company. Keep it short, simple and compelling. This is your chance to differentiate your brand. Don’t forget to include a link to your company website, where prompted.

Content

Isn’t that why we’re all here? Before you start inviting people to like your Facebook page, we suggest padding your page with content. So when new people come to your page, they see the value in following you. Pro tip: Backdate your posts so it doesn’t look like you published everything at once. A few additional tips:

1. Pin your best piece of content to the top of your page, to show it off.
2. Whenever we promote a piece of client content, we start off the post by saying “Client Update” to make others aware of our portfolio.
3. Use photo albums to show off your portfolio, or in our case, a special series of blog posts. For example, we conduct monthly interviews called The Twist, talking to entrepreneurs about that “aha moment” in their startup story — so we created a Facebook album with photos of the interviewees and links to their article in the captions.

Growing Your Facebook Page

1. Invite colleagues, customers, friends and family to like your Facebook page by clicking on the little three dots at the top of your page, and choosing “Invite Friends.”
2. Announce your new Facebook page in your email newsletter.
3. Promote your page through your other social handles: Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.

Et voilà! You now have a beautiful Facebook page for your business. You can like our Facebook page here. Let me know what you think, I’m always open for suggestions. And for additional tips on how to build a Facebook strategy, check out our resources here.

Cheers!

Joe