How to Build Your Business & Brand Using Facebook Pages

In my last post, I discussed about how to build your personal brand on Facebook. Today I am going to discuss how to brand your business using Facebook pages. Remember Facebook is the largest Social networking site which means that your customers and prospects are on the site. Your job as a business and a brand is to engage with fans, prospects and customers. The goal is to convert this engagement (marketing) to product sales. Facebook pages are a great way to do this.

Facebook has greatly increased the kinds of pages that people and brands can create. Currently there are six types of pages. These pages include: a Local Business or place page, a Company page, a Brand or Product page, an Artist, Fan or Public Figures page, an Entertainment page and a Causes or Community page. Each of these pages has their own benefits. However in this post, I am going to focus on the public figure and the Company pages; using my public figure and company pages as an example.

The first thing that you need to do before setting up a Facebook business page is to set up a Facebook account. The steps to set up a Facebook account addressed in my last post. Once you create an account you need to do the following:

1 Log in to your account

2 Scroll to the bottom of the page and find the create a page link

3 Once you click on the link, a page will come up that will list all six types of Facebook pages. (For this post we will focus on the Public Figure and Company pages.)

4 Choose the type of page you would like which in our case is the Public Figure and Company pages.

5 Once you choose the type of page you would like, you will be asked to select the category your page falls into.

6 The next step will be to name your page. For the public figure page use your name or your band’s name if you have one. Use your company name for your company page. I started with a public figure page and added a company page later.

7 Agree to Facebook’s terms and click the get started button.

Getting Started

I will start by discussing how to set up a public figure page. The first thing you will need to do is to fill in the basic information section of the public figure page. The basic information section asks for the following:

1 The category of the page, the type of person you are public figure, journalist etc…

2 Your name

3 Your Address (This is optional for public figure and company pages)

4 Your affiliation

5 Your date of birth

6 An about headline which is similar to the headline feature on LinkedIn except you need to provide the content, where LinkedIn will let you use your job title and company as a default. I would use this space to briefly sell who you are and what you do. You should be brief. My headline is: Sales & Marketing Maven who is available to meet your sales & marketing needs Contact me for a free consultation Read my Sales & Marketing Blog http://www.dangalante.me . As you can see my headline is short and to the point. You can elaborate on the headline in the Biography section.

7 Use the biography section to expand on the headline. This is the place to describe yourself, your credentials and what you have to offer potential customers. Here is an example of my biography section: I am Dan Galante, President, CEO, CMO, Sales and Marketing Consultant at Trend Setting Sales and Marketing. Trend Setting Sales and Marketing provides Sales, Marketing and Advertising services to clients across multiple mediums. Prior to my current role, I ran the New York City sales territory for Diversified Dental Sales Inc. During my time in this position, I called on Dental Professionals, selling them my company’s products and services. I helped build my company’s brand by educating Dental professionals who were previously unfamiliar with our offerings. I also hold a Master’s Degree in Education. My knowledge of Sales, Marketing and Education, gives me the expertise to teach business ways they can produce more. My objective is to use my sales, marketing and education experience to provide clients with sales and marketing consulting services. I am also interested in obtaining traditional sales and marketing positions in New York City. I author a sales and marketing blog. Also, I publish several online newspapers which focus on the topics of: Sales, Marketing, Advertising, Technology, the automotive industry and Dentistry serving as Editor in Chief of each.

Specialties:

Sales, Marketing, Advertising, Direct Marketing, Online Marketing, B2B Marketing, B2B Sales, Territory Sales, Sales Techniques, Lead Generation, Route Sales, Dental Equipment Sales, Dental Sales, Dental Marketing, Outside Sales, Prospecting, Cold Calling, Cold Canvassing, Cross Selling, Brand Building, Business Development, Account Management, Customer Service, Customer Loyalty, Customer Retention, Mediation, Social Media Marketing, Spokesperson, Trade show marketing, Event Marketing, Education

As you can see I offer a professional summary along with my specialties. Listing your specialties is a great place to list what you have done along with what you would like to do.

8 There is a section for awards, gender, personal information, personal interests, phone number and websites. I definitely would make use of the personal interests, and websites section to make your page come alive.

Setting Up Your Pages Visibility

The next thing that you need to is to decide who will see your page. Facebook allows you to decide what countries are allowed to view your pages.  You can get access to this setting by clicking the permissions tab. Depending on your content, you can set an age restriction. Facebook also allows you to decide the following: if you want people to tag you in photos and videos, if you want people to write and post content on your wall and if you want to block certain people from posting on your wall. Facebook also lets you block profanity from being posted on your wall. I recommend that you allow people to tag your photos and post comments on content you post. Also, I recommend that you allow others to share content on your wall. I recommend this because this will give you the opportunity to engage with your fans. Once you reach 25 likes, Facebook allows you to set a custom URL to your pages. I recommend doing this because it will be easier for people to find your page and it will be easier for search engines to index your page. Here are my custom URL’s. http://www.facebook.com/djgalante http://www.facebook.com/trendsettingsm  I picked one name that was my name and one that is a shortened version of my company name Trend Setting Sales and Marketing. You should pick names related to yourself and/or your business so people will find your page quickly and easily.

Facebook also allows you to use insights to see who is talking about your page and who likes your page. Also make sure to upload a professional photo of yourself.

Another thing you can do is to choose an administrator for your page. I would recommend doing this yourself unless you have a professional moderator for your page because the administrator will have full access to your page.  You can also post your tweets to Facebook using the Twitter plug-in the under the resources tab.

Getting Likes

Once your pages are complete, you want to get people to like your page. For a long time Facebook likes have been Facebook’s social currency. Likes symbolize social approval from friends and fans. In order to get likes, you should do the following:

1 Provide compelling content that engages Fans. (I share my blog posts with my fans.) Encourage them to share their stories using your product and services. This could be done through wall posts or videos

2 Promote your page by inviting your Facebook friends and sending email invitations to people who are not directly connected with you.

3 Use Facebook ads to get people to like and interact with your page. (I will discuss this at a later time)

4 Post content from your Facebook page. (Facebook allows users to switch between their personal accounts and their Facebook page.)

Remember that this takes work and it is an ongoing process.

The company page on Facebook is similar to the Public figure page. The Company page is good to promote your business if you have employees. It is also good if you want to promote your company as a brand. If you are a in a band or working by yourself, I would use the public figure page. I use both pages because I am looking to get customers and I would like to grow my idea into a large business. The difference with the Company page is that you will not have to provide a date of birth. However, you will have to provide a company description instead of a personal description. (About me) Also you can provide a mission statement and describe your offerings in the products box. These are the key differences between the pages.

Promoting your Facebook page on other Social Networks and other Platforms

1 Share your Facebook page on LinkedIn, Twitter and Google plus by sharing your pages URL on these sites; inviting your connections/followers to join you.

2 Include a link to your Facebook page in your email signature

3 Include Facebook plugins on your website and blog

4 Include your Facebook page on any printed materials that you give customers and prospects

5 Include your page in any TV, Radio or print advertisements that you engage in.

This is how to successfully build and promote a public figure and company page on Facebook.

Until next time, thank you for reading!