One of the most popular ways of promoting a small business is with a Facebook page. Millions of people are on Facebook every day and it has become a place to share ideas, tips and information about… everything! As a business, you can create community and build relationships with clients as well as share information about your products and services with a huge potentially audience.

But it all takes time. So here’s the step-by-step guide to setting up your page and getting started quickly.

First you need to have a personal profile on Facebook. This will be totally separate to your business page so you don’t have to worry that clients will be able to see your personal information. If you don’t have one already, go to Facebook.com and fill in the basic info to start your account.

Create your Facebook Page

1. On the left side of your Personal Timeline screen, there should be a section called “Page & Ads”. Hover over the heading and a “More” option will appear. Click on that to see a list of all your pages. At the top there is a button to “Create a Page”.
2. Choose the reason you want to start your page from the boxes – a business, a product, or a community, for example.
3. Fill in a name for your page. Tick the box to agree to Facebook’s Terms.
4. Upload a profile picture. The best size is 126 x 126 pixels.
5. Fill in your Website and some information in the About section. Note: If you put your website URL in your About section, it will be a clickable link on your page.
6. Next it will take you through a series of options about your new page, including how to invite friends to your new page. You might want to set up a few more things before you invite too many friends so it looks professional when they visit.

The Admin Panel

At the very top of your new page you have the Admin panel. Only you can see this panel, and you can close it with the “Hide” button in the top right corner.

• Notifications – this tells you everything that has happened on your page recently – who has liked things or commented.
• Messages – these are the private messages that people have sent to you through your page. If you click on a message you will be able to answer it.
• New Likes – these are the recent people who have liked your page.
• Insights – after you have 30 likes, you will be able to see statistics about the activity on your page.
• Page Tips – these come from Facebook and help you to learn about your page and how it works.
• If you click “See All” on any of these sections, you will be able to see all the entries.

The Page Header

Your Profile Picture will be at the left of the header. You can change it by hovering over it then clicking the “Edit Profile Picture” button that will appear.

The cover photo is a large picture at the top of the page. The cover photo needs to be at least 399 pixels, but the optimum size is 851 x 316 pixels. This can include writing but it is not allowed to be an ad. To quote from the FB Help Center, your cover image must not include:

• Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
• Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About Section.
• References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
• Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

Below the cover photo, you can see your About section and some buttons called Tabs.

Tabs

Tabs are kind of like pages or sections within your Facebook page. The Photo Tab is always there by default but all the others can be moved around or changed. You will also see the Likes Tab.

There can be up to 4 Tabs showing in the Header area, but you can have up to 12 tabs in all. You can see I have heaps of Tabs over at the Crafty Mummy Facebook Page – click the little arrow down to the right to view them all.

You can add Tabs to connect to other social media networks, link to your store or blog, show static information about your business and more. You can have Tabs created professionally for a fee, but there are free applications as well. Read more here.

You can also change the images for the Tabs. Those images are 111 x 74 pixels so you can create a new image that size then upload it. Learn more here.

Milestones

One of the things that appears automatically on your new page is a Milestone section saying that your page was started. You can customise this with a picture and change the information as well.

You can also create more Milestones. These might be important events or changes in your business – new staff, new products or services, a change of location, etc. You can add these anytime in the same place where you would add a status update – just choose the “Event, Milestone” option.

Set the URL for your page

Once your Facebook Page has 25 fans, you can set a personalised URL for it, such as http://www.facebook.com/CraftyMummy.

To do this look at the top of your Admin Panel and click “Edit Page”, then “Update Info”. In the next screen, you will want to set the “Username” under “Basic Information”.

Add Extra Admins

While you are in that Edit Page screen, you may want to add an extra person as an Admin on your page. It can be useful to have someone else with access to the Admin Panel. You must be friends on Facebook with the other person to make them an Admin.

Click on Admin Roles, then start typing your colleague’s name into the box. Facebook will pick people from your FB friends list that match so you can select them. It will set them as a Manager by default but you can adjust how much access they have by choosing a different role. 

Mobile Phone App

Finally once you have your new Page set up you may want to look at downloading the Facebook Pages Application for your phone. This will allow you to update your page when you are out and about.

What else would you like to know about your Facebook Page? You can visit the Facebook help Center from the top right of your Admin Panel, or leave a comment and I’ll try to help.