How to Setup A Facebook Page For Your Business
June 29th, 2009 by Allison Kulage
So you’re taking the leap and ready to create a Facebook page for your company. Here’s how you do it. First of all, you will need to have a personal page before you can create a new page for your business. But you already have one of those, right? We know you do… we’ve seen your wall. If you won’t admit to us that you have a personal Facebook page, then you can take a moment now to jump over to facebook.com and create one. Don’t worry, we’ll wait here for you.
So, NOW you have a personal Facebook page. Let’s begin. Click this link to create a new facebook business page. You will see a few category options here for the type of page you want to create. If you’re a strictly local business or organization, choose your type of business from the Local drop down menu. If you are a national business or organization, then choose the category that best suits you from the Brand, Product or Organization category. There is even a category for Artist, Band or Public Figure if that best describes who you are. Just choose wisely because you can’t change this later.
Then, enter the name of your business in the field that says “Name of ____”. It will actually populate the name that you just chose in the category drop down so if you’re a restaurant for example, it will say “Name of Restaurant”. Once you’ve done that, complete the authorization at the end of the page and you’re on to creating your page!
Now comes the fun part. Upload pictures so you have a profile photo on your page. Just hover your mouse over the giant question mark image that you see on your page and click the box that pops up that says “change image”. The image can be your logo or even a funny or interesting photo that highlights what you do best. Your logo might be a good choice if branding is your main focus. However, showcasing features of your business can attract more fans to your page. Just check out the Facebook page for Jerry’s Cheesecakes for example. Rather than a logo, they have a photo of a tasty cake creation. Makes your mouth water just looking at it!
Next, click the Edit Page link on the left side of the page to further customize your page. Note that when you first create your account, it will not be publicly visible. But once your page is ready for the public, look for the red link that says “publish this page” or you can just make it public through your settings (the link in the upper right corner).
When you click the Edit Page link, you’ll see a list of changes you can make to various areas of your site. These include Settings, Wall Settings, and Mobile for the general account settings. There are also various Applications that you can adjust the settings for, including links, events, photos and more. Facebook has a little blue pencil icon next to the editable areas so just click on that and choose the admin options from the list that appears. Here are a few explanations of basic settings to get you started:
General Settings
- Settings – Is your content suitable for all audiences or only certain age limits? You can set those limits here. This is also where you change the settings to make the page public.
- Wall Settings – Do you want to allow fans to post to your wall? You can allow or prevent comments on your wall here. Is there a tab that you would like to appear as the default landing tab when people first come to your page? Perhaps your RSS/Blog tab is more interesting than your wall and you want it to be the first thing people see when they come to your page.
- Mobile – Depending on your page’s activity and your tolerance for incoming text messages, you have the ability to send alerts to your cell phone whenever someone posts something to your page.
Applications
Facebook provides a detailed explanation of each of the applications that you currently have. You’ll start out with some default apps, and can click the pencil next to “More Applications” to browse for and add other applications to your page. If you have a blog, for example, browse for Social RSS and add that application.
The pencil icon next to each application gives you three options: Edit, Application Settings, and Remove. Some of the apps have an option to Link to this Tab which just gives you the direct URL of the page (whether it’s your photos, or your video page, etc.) that you can link to from an email, another page, etc.
In the options, choose Edit to go to specific settings related to that application. The Application Settings option will allow you to include that application in a tab on your page, or a box which appears as an element in your Boxes tab.
There are a lot of things you can do with your Facebook page and many ways to customize it so explore the various features and decide what works best for your business. Of course, be sure to use keywords wherever possible, and don’t forget to add links to your web site. Not only does it help describe your business, but it might help you gain some rankings for your Facebook page. Include photos of your location if it might help people find your brick and mortar better. If you’ve attended an event, share your photos from the event on your page and show your company’s involvement. You can even import your blog into the RSS/Blog tab of your page. Once you are happy with your page, publish it for all the world to see.
The next step is gaining fans for your page. Start by sending out a friendly invite from your page to all your current friends on Facebook, asking them to be a fan, and make sure everyone in your company or organization invites their friends as well. If you’re not already a fan of Upright Communications, see it in action on our page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Upright-Communications/112757250759 Just Click the “Become A Fan” link at the top of the page.
What will really boost your fan base, though, is if you create a page that is interesting enough that people will naturally want to become fans and share it with their friends. Every time someone interacts with your page, it appears on their wall (which is like their main Facebook page). So the more you entice users to interact with your page (not just view it) the more exposure you’ll get in Facebook. Yes, we’re always chanting the same mantra… create good content that makes people want to talk about you. This is what will make Facebook something of value for your business and bring more qualified visitors to your site.
August 10th, 2009 at 11:10 am
I followed the diretions for setting up a business page but now I can’t edit it/
August 12th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Sherry – This depends on how you setup your business page. Did you set it up through your personal profile or just a business page on it’s own? If you set it up through a personal profile, just go to the upper right corner, start typing your business name, and it will drop down a menu with your business page. Click that and under your image on the left side of the page, you should see a link that says Edit Page. Hope that helps!
August 25th, 2009 at 8:32 am
Allison,
thank you for the info.
…but how do I edit the page if I did NOT setup the company page through my personal profile?
August 25th, 2009 at 9:10 am
When you setup a Facebook Page for your business, you have the choice to link it to a Facebook Personal page or not. If you choose not to link it to a personal page, then you setup your account with your email address and password. That is the same login info that you’ll use to edit your page. Once you’ve logged in, just click “Edit Page” under the image in the upper left side of the page. That will allow you to edit anything you need. You can also click Settings at the top of the page to change various settings on your account.
August 28th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Allison, after I completed the set up of the Advantage Engineering facebook page…. ads shows up in the right hand column. I noticed that the Upright facebook page doesn’t have that column. What is the method to remove or block these ads from showing on a coporate page? Thanks!
September 8th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Dave – Facebook says that you can’t turn off ads in the right column. I actually see the ads appearing in the right column on our page now as well, so perhaps this was another change in the way Facebook was displaying things that you saw.
September 9th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
If my personal account is kept extremely private, do I have to change this to have my business page be public?
September 9th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
No, your personal page and your business page are not connected when it comes to how a viewer sees it. You can keep your personal profile as private as you wish, and set your business page settings to public without one affecting the other.
September 24th, 2009 at 8:00 am
In trying to set up a business page for the first time. I inaccuracy created extra business pages and would like to delete the extra pages.
How do I do that?
Also, how can I make my business page my main page in facebook and hide my personal page? This is what I would like to do. When I sign in I would like my business page (FrogKreek.com) to come up not my personal page.
Thanking you in advance for any help you can rendered.
Roan Lydon
FrogKreek.Com
Lydonllc@sbcglobal.net
September 25th, 2009 at 9:11 am
You can delete pages. Just login to your business page, then click Edit Page which is located on the left under your profile image. You’ll see a link at the top of the next page that says delete page.
As for making your business page your main page in Facebook, you would have to create it without having a personal profile attached. However, users can’t tell who’s personal profiles are attached to that page. This is just one of those features with Facebook where you can’t login directly to your business page. You have to login to your personal page first, then go over to the business page. I agree, it would be nice to just login directly to the business page but I’m not aware of a feature like that.
Hope this helps!
October 5th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
This information is extremely useful. I have an additional question in regards to the “become a fan” link.
I found it easy to suggest friends of my personal profile “become a fan” of my business page. How can I also do this in my company emails or on our website? What URL should I send people to “become a fan” who I may not want as friends in my personal facebook profile?
thanks for the help.
October 5th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Todd – that is a great question, and also brings up an important point. Sometimes you don’t want fans of your business to also be able to view your personal profile. And it’s also beneficial in gaining fans to be able to promote the page to people outside of your circle of friends in Facebook.
There are a couple options here. One is to just go to your business page and copy and paste the URL that you see up in the location bar of your browser. Make sure you’re viewing your business profile page and not an admin page or a different tab. You can always test this by copying that URL and then going to another browser window and pasting it to make sure the page you see is what you want the user to see.
The other option is to setup a unique URL through your business page. If you have more than 100 fans, you can go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ and complete the form to setup a unique URL. Then it’s something nice and easy to remember, and send to others… such as http://www.facebook.com/walkupright.
Thanks for your questions! You brought up some great points here and I hope they’ve been helpful to our readers as well!
October 7th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Thank you so much for the quick response. I’ve tried this a few times and can’t seem to get the result I’m looking for. It seems that the link in my browser eaither can’t be displayed when placed in a new window.
My name is always shown at the top as logged in since my personal account is linked as the admin. How can I be sure I’m sending the correct link?
By the way, if it helps, the name of my business is “Bumpit Entertainment” and it only seems to be found when searching for the exact name. Since I don’t think anyone can view/find pages when not actually logged in to facebook, it doesn’t look like I can go to the page after logging out either.
Thank you again in advance.
October 8th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
I found your site. I believe this is it: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Corona-CA/BumpIt-Entertainment/156162037832?ref=search&sid=684968161.2194206265..1
It’s a pretty long ugly URL, but as soon as you get 100 fans, you can change it to a nice pretty one at facebook.com/username. For now, though, you should be able to try that URL. Your name will always show up at the top when you login because your personal page is connected to your business page. Your personal and business accounts behave differently as well, so you can post things on people’s walls as your personal profile, but not as your business for example.
I hope this helps! Good luck to you getting to your 100 fan mark too! I like what you’ve done with your page so far!
October 19th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
There is no invite fans in my business page. At least I think it’s a business page.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gilded-Owl-Jewelry/161062411285?created
October 21st, 2009 at 10:03 am
Chris – under your logo/profile photo on your page, you should see a list of links. You may need to click the “more” link to see all of them, but within that list is a “Suggest to Friends” link. This is how you can suggest your page to your existing friends from your personal account and invite them. If you do not have a personal page connected, then you might not get this feature.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I’m trying to create a fan page for a client — so I don’t want it attached to my personal account. The real issue/concern for me is I want to be able to sent out notices/invitations for the client and have them come from the business, not me. But because I have to connect to my account, they come from me. Any advice? Do I set up a personal account for the business with a different email address than my own and then set up the Facebook fan page? Help…
October 30th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Holly – business pages can’t be used to send messages, add “friends” (you have “fans”) or interact with other pages. If you want to send notices or invitations, you might want to start a group page and utilize that feature of Facebook. Or you can create a personal account for the business and use that for contacting people directly.
October 30th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Hey Allison, how can I place my website hyper-link on my Facebook business page (not published yet), under my
logo in the left column… do I need to know html ? or is there an easy way ?
Also, do the search engines use the words in my “info” page and in the description under my logo to index?
Or do I need to have a pay-per-click ad to get some in the city I need ?
Thanks, Dan
November 4th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Hi Dan! This is easy, and the good news is, you don’t have to know HTML! Simply click the little pencil icon in the box you want to add info to and enter the full URL – that means the http:// at the beginning and everything. Facebook will automatically make it a link for you.
November 25th, 2009 at 2:10 am
What does it matter about Local vs Brand for the category? I am a professional service and chose one of those categories. (I don’t remember which one now.)
Is there any way to see what category I chose when I first set up my page?
Here’s the link: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Rowlett-TX/Sheri-Thompson-Stampin-Up-Demonstrator/158950560855
December 21st, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Hey Sheri-
I found the category in which you had chosen by searching for you on Facebook. It says your category is “Professional Service” . Unfortunately you cannot go back into Facebook and change your category listing- not sure if you were interested in doing so.
In regards to your first question, for example, if you were a plumber and only served a major metropolitan city, you would be considered a local company. However, if your company’s situation is differnet, you would want to choose a category that best fits your business. The brand category is simply for those companies like Coke, Skittles, etc.
Please let us know if you have further questions- we’d be happy to help!
Happy Holidays.
Colleen
December 29th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Help! I have tried setting up an account connected to my personal account and also as a seperate account and I am still haveing the same problem. In the space next to where it says settings in the top right both pages are displaying my name and not my company name. Is there any way to change it so that it says Niche Catering and Special Events vs. my name? Thanks in advance for your help!
December 29th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Kathy – it sounds like you’ve setup your personal and your business account, but you just want to be able to access the business account? The place to do this is in the search box at the top. Just start typing in your business name and if the two accounts are connected, you’ll see the name autocomplete in that box. Just select it and you’re on your business page. The settings link is just for your personal account. Hope this helps!
February 12th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
I have a personal facebook page and then recently created a business page to promote a music event. Is there a way to post to other pages to get fans without my personal photo attached? I would much rather have my business page logo attached as that is more professional. I have seen other venues doing this and cannot find any solution as to how to do this.
Thanks.
February 12th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Katrina,
I wish I had a good answer for you. This is one of those issues that a lot of people have with Facebook. I submitted a thread over a year ago on the subject and all I get is constant replies of people saying they have the same problem. Unfortunately, Facebook isn’t always quick to address certain issues. I’m hoping they will fix it soon. If they do, you’ll be sure to hear about it from Upright!
March 4th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
I still cannot figure out how to separate my personal page from my business page. Every time I go to the business page through my profile I cant edit or do anything to the business page. I doesnt give me an edit button to click on. Also, I thought I was the adminstrator for my business site but I guess not. I dont know who set it up as it was about a year ago. How can I find out who the adminstrator is? If it is me how do i get administrator rights back as i cant do anything on the site
March 9th, 2010 at 10:17 am
One thing you can try – to find out the admin of a page – is to send a message to that page. Then, check any and all emails that might be associated with that page. Or, hopefully whomever set it up is cooperative and will contact you when they get the email.