It’s also somewhere for your potential customers or service users to easily find all the information they need to know about your business in one place. With the ever-expanding ‘Metaverse’ monopolizing our online spaces, more and more people are instinctively turning to Facebook when they want to know more about a brand or business to find the information they need, such as business hours, upcoming events and important announcements, as well as to get a feel for a brand’s online ‘personality’ or presence.
Not only is a Facebook business page a great way for your audience to get to know your brand better, but it’s also a great way for you to learn more about your audience. Setting up a business page will provide you with valuable behind the scenes insights into how your page is being seen and engaged with, who by, and how often, as well as being able to tell you what sort of content is driving eyes and clicks to your page (and on the flip side, what content isn’t!).
So, “how do I set up a Facebook business page?”, we hear you ask. The answer is easy, and we’re about to show you how! Follow these simple steps below and find out how to cover off the basics and set up a page for your brand.
This first step might seem like a no brainer, but there is one crucial difference between setting up a Facebook Business page and the setting up of any other kind of social media account. For most accounts you choose a username and password and share this with others in order to access it. However, with a Facebook page, there is no username and password to share.
It is a requirement of Facebook pages that you use your personal profile account to set one up, and that any other employees invited to collaborate need to use their own personal profiles when given roles on the account too. In an environment of GDPR making us all mindful to not cross lines between an employee’s personal and business life, this can feel like it is stepping pretty close to an encroachment.
Don’t make the mistake of getting the office junior or a work placement student to set up your page for you because they will end up doing it under their own personal account. You may inadvertently end up with them being the main Admin on the page, with all the primary contact details. Of course, when people like this leave the business, they take your Facebook page along with them.
So, for step one, be mindful of the Facebook account you will be using to log in, and make sure that you’re logging into the account that you want to have primary access to your Facebook business page in the first instance.
The account that you’re logged in with, whether it be your own personal account or an account you’ve set up specifically to manage your business page, needs to be the one that you plan to access the business page with (of course you can, if needed, add other people’s accounts that also require access to your page later down the line).
Once you’re logged in, you should be able to see a sidebar menu on the left that’s full of easy access options such as your Friends, your Shortcuts and more. From here, click the option that says Pages. This will take you into the main Pages part of Facebook, where you can easily access all the pages you manage (if any), as well as show you a list of the pages you’ve liked, and any invitations to like pages that you’ve received from other people.
Click the button in the left sidebar menu that says “+ Create New Page” to get started.
On the next page, you’ll be asked to enter a page name, select a category for your page, and to write a short description that summarises what your business is all about.
For your page name, keep it simple. Your brand or business name is the best choice. If you do happen to have a common or popular business name though, it’s definitely worth adding something that will help identify your business uniquely, such as your location or the nature of your business (e.g. Marketing, Accounting, Beauty).
For the category, you can choose up to three categories* that you feel best represent your business. Start typing a keyword that you feel best fits your business and a drop-down list of suggestions will appear. These can always be changed later, so don’t stress too much if the nature of your page or business changes further down the line.
* As a special note, if you are setting up a page for a Charity, then choose ‘charity’ as your first category – see this blog for more details on setting up a Facebook Charity page.
With your page description, a brief summary of what your business does and the services you provide will do the trick. You only have a 255-character limit to play with, so less is definitely more. You can always provide additional page information in other sections of your page (but we’ll come to that later). The description isn’t actually required right away (just the page name and categories are), so if you’re really drawing a blank you can always come back to it.
Once you’ve done this, click the Create Page button in the bottom left to continue to the next step.
The next step is to add a profile picture and cover photo. Choosing a profile picture should be relatively simple, as ideally it should be your business’s logo. It’s important to make sure that it fits neatly in Facebook’s circular profile picture layout, so it may need resizing or cropping for the best fit. A square image with the logo in the centre normally works best.
The recommended size for your Facebook cover photo is 851 x 315 pixels. Choose an engaging image that shows off your brand’s personality for your cover photo. Have fun with it and update it regularly to reflect things like the season, any special offers you might have running or to promote an upcoming event or product.
It’s recommended that you use a JPG or PNG file for your profile picture and cover photo, with a PNG file recommended especially if your image contains logos or text.
This step is also optional when first creating your page, however you may as well play around with the layout and trying different images while you’re here, as there’s a handy desktop preview to help you decide on what will work best visually on your page. After you’ve picked the perfect combo and added them to your page, click ‘Save’ in the bottom left corner to continue.
After you progress to the next page, you may get a pop-up that asks you if you’d like to connect your page to your WhatsApp business account. This can be useful (if you have a WhatsApp business account), as you can then run Facebook and Instagram ads that click through to WhatsApp so that your audience can communicate with you directly from an ad. However, if you’re just setting up your Facebook business page, then chances are that thinking about things like paid social ads is something you might consider a little further down the line, so don’t worry about this step too much.
If you want to set it up, enter your business phone number and click Send Code. If you don’t want to, no worries! Just click the “X” in the top-right corner of the pop-up to dismiss it.
Congratulations! Put your feet up, pour yourself a glass of wine, your new Facebook page is now created.
Before you get too comfortable, your task isn’t quite complete yet. It’s definitely worthwhile adding some extra information to your page to provide visitors with all the knowledge they need when it comes to finding out more about your business.
Now that your page is set up, you can continue to add more information and customise your Facebook page however you like.
Here are some steps we’d recommend also undertaking on your page:
It’s easier for your audience to search for you on Facebook if you have a memorable username that’s unique to your page. Your default username will be a string of numbers like this:
https://www.facebook.com/162789904198085
When you and your customers would find the following kind of web address far easier to use in your marketing:
https://www.facebook.com/destinationdigitalmarketing/
The option to create a username should appear somewhere under your page name and cover photo. Setting a username will also enable people or other pages to easily tag your page in posts and comments, which is great for word of mouth. If you want to change your page username at any point, you can do so in the ‘Edit Page info’ tab in the left sidebar menu.
You can add a call-to-action button to your Facebook page by clicking ‘Add a Button’ at the top-right of your page.
From there, choose a call to action from the available options that you want people to take when they visit your Facebook page. You can encourage people to visit your website, contact you via Facebook Messenger, email or telephone, to book appointments, follow your page and much, much more. Choose the one that matters most to you as this button will be the most prominent one at the top of your Facebook page.
To manage your page’s About section, click the ‘More’ tab at the top of your page, it should live beneath your page name, and select About from the drop-down list. Here, you can add your business hours, location, contact information and more. You can also add additional information here that wouldn’t fit in your initial page description, if you wish.
We all have to start somewhere with a new Facebook page, and so the first place you can start is with a trusted group of friends. Click the ‘invite friends to like your page’ button and select from your friends in the list you are given. They will each be sent a notification asking them to like the page, and this could be just what’s needed to start the ball rolling.
Now that you have gone to all this trouble, you should also make your first proper post. Write a short message, use a good landscape orientated image (or if you are really pushing the boat out, then use a video) and make sure to include a good call to action. A call-to-action is a prompt to ‘visit your website (and give them the link)’, to phone you, to email you or message you via Facebook or in the comments section of the post you are making. This will be your first step to creating a community for your business and so prompting people to interact with you makes a great first step.
We hope that you found this hack useful. Take a look at the other social media help articles we’ve put together:
We’re sure there will be additions to this list, so maybe bookmark this page if you found it helpful.
If you’d like help with your Facebook marketing, general social media marketing, or even help setting up your own Facebook business page, then email us on info@destination-digital.co.uk or give us a call on 01629 810199 for a quick chat.
If you’d like help with digital marketing, ads management, SEO, copywriting, websites, branding or social media management… or anything else related to the internet and digital, then get in touch with us. We’re a friendly bunch.
You can email us on info@destination-digital.co.uk or give us a call on 01629 810199 or you can use the contact form at the bottom of this page.
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