Building a Business Page on Facebook

There are many reasons why creating a Facebook Page is beneficial for the success of your business. Facebook Pages allow businesses to develop their brand, grow their audience and start conversations with customers and people interested in learning more. To create a Facebook Page, you'll need to already have a personal profile. This is because only people with profiles on Facebook can create or have a role on Pages. If you're still not sure a Facebook Page is right for you, check out this top list of reasons why businesses should adopt Facebook Pages.

It's free

It's free to create a Page for your business. All you need to do is follow the steps for creating a Page and decide how you'd like to use your Page to interact with people and customers on Facebook. Once your Page is created, you can get access to many free features like Messenger, Page Insights, publishing tools and other tools that help you manage your Page.

Your competitors are already using Pages

With 65 million businesses using Pages on Facebook, it's likely your competitors are already using Facebook as a marketing tool to grow their businesses and brands.

Humanize your company

Creating an online presence for your business helps you build social connections with your audience and drive real business results. With a Facebook Page, you can curate the tone, style and personality of your business. You can also showcase your brand through photos and video through posts or Page Stories, or share personal epithets and engage in one-toone conversations through comments and messaging. Putting a face to your business through a Facebook Page reminds your audience that it's run by real people.

Learn about your target audience

As a business, you probably care deeply about your core audience–the customers who care most about what you have to offer. With a Facebook Page, you can learn even more about your audience and find more people like them.

When you create a Page, you can chat with customers directly through comments on your posts and Messenger. You can also see what customers are saying to each other. Gathering this feedback may help inform your business decisions and the content you share on your Facebook Page. Better yet, you can use your Page's Insights to understand the actions people take on your Page, like how often they like, comment on and share posts. You'll also have access to aggregate data about your audience's demographics, like age, gender and location.

Build your community

With a Facebook Page, you have the opportunity to engage your community. You can post about the newest products or services your business is offering, organize contests or run Facebook ads. You may also want to offer incentives or discounts or simply ask your audience to provide reviews or feedback through the comment section of a post.

Try posting testimonials from your biggest fans or customers for others to see so they know that real people are out there who also love what your business offers. By sharing endorsements from your audience, you may build authenticity and trust for your brand.

Strengthen customer relationships

Growing customer loyalty is key for many businesses. A Facebook Page may help you build and maintain the loyalty you promise to your customers and the loyalty you desire from them in return. With a Facebook Page, you're able to stimulate your community of followers through ads you create, the testimonials you share out and the conversations you facilitate. Further strengthen your relationships with your audience by earning a Very Responsive Badge. Pages also make it easy for customers to book directly with you for all appointments, so you'll be able to communicate and manage business directly with the Appointments on Facebook tool.

Expose your brand

Exposing your brand on Facebook helps you increase awareness of your business. Whenever someone likes, comments or shares something from your Page, their friends may see that they engaged with it and may in turn go on to interact with your content or seek out more information about your business. As your brand awareness grows, learn about how much time you'll spend managing your Page..

Drive traffic

A Facebook Page can help you drive traffic to other sites you care about, like your website. You can add your website to your Page's About section and create posts on your Facebook Page with links to relevant pages on your website, like blogs, newsletters and more. Your Page may also be indexed by Google, meaning it can appear in Google's search results when people are looking for your business. To help make sure your Facebook Page is easily findable, link your Facebook account from your website and any other online resources you offer.

Act on insights

Once you have around 100 fans on your Facebook Page, you should start monitoring your Page Insights. Page Insights offer a wealth of information about how people interact with your Page and engage with your posts. You'll also get access to demographic info. You can use these Insights to make strategic choices for your business. For example, you can use the information you find to identify the types of posts your audience is most likely to interact with and tailor your message accordingly.

Leverage competitor insights

Since Facebook Pages are public, you can view what other businesses are doing on Facebook and the techniques they're using to reach their audiences. In the Insights tab on your Page, you can even add specific Pages you want to watch and see the number of times they're posting each week, the number of likes their Page has and more.

Unlock the power of Facebook advertising

Having a Facebook Page is a prerequisite to being able to advertise on Facebook. Facebook Pages are free and provide you with a place to create and manage ads. Facebook ads are a great way to grow your brand and audience on and off of Facebook and within your budget. Facebook ads can appear on Facebook (ex, mobile and desktop News Feeds), Instagram and Audience Network. Where you place your ads, the creative, targeting, budget and schedule of the ads you run is up to you.

You'll have access to other Facebook advertising tools to help you understand what you're getting in return from each ad you run. Additionally, Facebook advertising makes it easy to optimize your advertising efforts to ensure you're creating quality ads that help you reach even more people as your business grows..

What to do if you created an event, group or profile instead of a

Facebook Page

Facebook offers many tools to connect with the different communities you care about. We recommend checking out the differences between profiles, Pages, groups and events so you can be sure you're choosing the right option for you. If you accidentally created an event, group or profile for your business, there are some steps you can take to transition to a Page.

If you've decided to transition to a Facebook Page and are using another asset, here are some recommendations:

1. Write a status on the profile, group or event you created that says you have a new Facebook Page for your business and ask people to go like the Page to continue receiving updates and information from you.

2. Share your Page to your personal timeline and ask close friends if they'll like and share it. Doing this may help you grow the audience for your new Facebook Page faster.

3. Once you've built momentum, gaining likes and followers on your new Page, deactivate your initial profile, group or event, so your followers go to one place for your business.

Post ideas for Pages

Interested in learning more about the amount of time you should spend managing your Page? Review the factors you should consider and additional tips.

There are free ways to keep your Page active even if you don't have a particular promotion or post in mind. The more often you post, the easier it'll become to quickly create posts for your Page. You'll get the most out of Page when your audience sees that you're active and engaging. This means anyone who visits your Page should see a post that is both:

1. Recent: New and frequent posts tell your audience that you're active, legitimate, and care about them as customers. Old or expired posts could imply your business isn't active or investing the time to drive business value.

2. Personal and meaningful: The more relatable your content is, the more you'll be able to connect to your audience. When potential customers see that you're posting content that matters to them, they could be more likely to become fans of your Page or trust your business.

Page posts can include content that's entertaining for your audience, makes them think, or provides value to their lives in some way. No matter what you share, engaging posts perform best. If you're just getting started with a Facebook Page for your business and aren't sure what to post about, the following ideas may help you get started: Reflect your current Call-to-Action button

If you have a Call-to-Action button set on your Page, write a new post that highlights it. For example, if your current CTA is Book Now, you would write a new post letting your audience know that there are still openings available for them to booked and that they can book directly by clicking your CTA. Learn how to add a Call-to-Action button to your Page

Run a contest or giveaway

A possible way to encourage more likes, comments and shares is to announce a contest or giveaway that incentivizes people's participation. At the end of the week, pick a winner from the group of people who shared your post and congratulate them in an entirely new post. Consider announcing a future contest or giveaway that your audience should stay tuned for.

Share fan testimonials

It can be exciting and uplifting when people say kind words about what you do. Share some in moderation so the rest of your audience can celebrate with you.

Crowdsource feedback

One way to generate feedback on your products, services or business in general is to leverage feedback from your Page fans. The added benefit is you might choose to use this feedback to improve your business, generating more transparency and openness with your audience as you create brand trust.

Ask your audience to make a choice

A fun method to engage with your audience when you don't necessarily have something business-specific to share is to ask your audience to make a choice, pick a favorite, or decide between two things. When you set up your fans with a friendly This or That question, you can spark an interest that invites them to respond.

Pose a question

A simple way to start a dialog with your audience is to ask them a pointed question, like how they're feeling that day or what weekend plans they're excited for. When your audience relates to the questions you ask and you leverage their interests and needs, they may feel more inclined to respond and generate threads on your posts.

Share industry news

Sharing news from your industry will communicate to your audience that you don't just care about promoting your business, but that you also care about keeping your Page fans informed about current topics that are relevant to them.

Celebrate a holiday

Holidays, either nationally recognized or trending on social media, are opportunities for your Page to contribute to the celebration with a Page post of your own. Best Friends Day or Pet Day, for example, are all light-hearted openings to celebrate common interests among your audience. These celebrations may vary depending on where you're located.

Note: If you're unsure if your post is appropriate for Facebook, check out Facebook's Terms of Service.

Boost your best posts

If you posted something to your Page that received a lot of comments, likes and shares, it's likely because it was personal or meaningful to your audience. Try boosting that post to reach a wider audience and connect with potential customers that haven't been to your Page yet. To see how your boosted post is performing, go to the Ad Center tab on your Page to view results.