Before you get too excited about the potential for Facebook business pages to spread your brand and thoughts, there are a couple of things you need to know.
Note: This article was written in 2017. The account creation steps might have changed. We’ll be updating this article soon.
- Facebook will only show your posts to about 2% of your followers. So if you have 100 followers an average of 2 will see your post.
- If you’d want the remaining 98% of your Facebook followers to see your content, you’ll have to pay Facebook to “boost” your posts.
Step 1: Create a Facebook profile or sign in to your current Facebook profile
Facebook requires every business page to be linked to a personal Facebook profile. All of the information you post to your business page and personal page are completely separate. A visitor to your Facebook business page will have no idea that you created it or own it unless you choose to put your personal information on the page.
You can only have one Facebook profile tied to your name, but you can have an unlimited number of Facebook business pages associated with your Facebook profile account.
Step 2. Sign up for a Facebook Business Page
Note that a Facebook Business Page is simply referred to as a Page, versus Profile which is what your personal Facebook area is called.
Before creating your Facebook business page check to see if Facebook already has one created for you. A Facebook Page may exist for your business even if someone from your company didn’t create it. For example, when someone checks into a business place that doesn’t have a Business Page, an unmanaged Page is created to represent the business location.
Rather than creating one from scratch you can claim the one they have listed. Here’s the instructions on how to do this from Facebook.
If you don’t have an automatically created Facebook page then proceed as follows:
Go to facebook.com/business and click Create a Page in the top right hand corner.
You’ll be greeted with two business type options Business or Brand and Community or Public Figure. Select Business or Brand.
When you click on a business type, a box will open asking for a few further details, like the name of your business, your address, and your Category.
When you start typing in the category field, you’ll see a list of potential category options to choose from. After you’re done click the Continue button.
Step 3. Add a Profile Picture
The ideal Facebook profile photo size is 360 x 360 pixels. Facebook profile photos must be at least 180 x 180 pixels. It’s important to note that if you use your logo as a profile photo, which is common, you’ll need to save it as a .png or .gif file format. A .jpg will often be blurry even when saved at the proper size.
Step 4. Add a Cover Photo
The optimal size for a Facebook cover photo is 820 x 462 pixels. (820 x 312 will also work but I recommend 820 x 462 for optimal performance.)
If you go searching for Facebook photo sizes you’ll come up with all sorts of answers. Most work well but you’ll need to pick a single size.
If your uploaded image is smaller than these dimensions, Facebook will stretch it to fit — making it look blurry.
At this size, your photo will display beautifully both on desktop and mobile, while its cropped version will never lose integrity. In other words, you’ll have a crisp, perfect Facebook cover photo, no matter how it’s displayed.
A Page’s Facebook cover photo needs to be branded and represent your business well. It must be high quality and perfectly optimized.
Tip one: Right-align the objects in your cover photo.
Since your profile picture is on the left, you should add some balance to your Facebook cover photo design by having the focus of the cover photo appear on the right.
Tip two: Think about mobile users.
On smartphones, a portion of your cover photo is blocked because the profile picture and the Page name are on top of the cover photo. Your cover photo only displays within the center 640 pixel wide by 360 pixel tall area on smartphones.
Step 5. Add a short description
Your short description should be just a couple of sentences (maximum 155 characters), so there’s no need to get too in-depth here. Click Add a Short Description, then just share what your visitors need to know as clearly and concisely as possible.
Step 6. Add more details
You’ll be prompted to add a few more details next such as:
- Phone number if you haven’t added it
- Your website address
- Your email address
- Your location and hours
The more details you provide here the better. Don’t forget to update these if your location or phone number changes in the future. You might notice “Impressum” as an available entry. What’s an Impressum? It’s a legal term used primarily in Germanic countries regarding a statement of the ownership and authorship of a document. In some countries not having a proper “Impressum” on a website has some implications. For Facebook in the U.S. you can pretty much ignore this entry.
Step 7. Create your username a.k.a. Vanity URL
Your username, also called your vanity URL, is how you’ll tell people where to find you on Facebook. Your username can be up to 50 characters long. It should be easy to type and easy to remember. Your business name or some variation will work best.
- Click About on the left side of your Page.
- Click Edit next to your current Page username.
- Enter a new username.
- If the username is available click Create Username.
Note that occasionally you’ll get errors related to creating a username for your page. You may get a prompt that your page isn’t eligible for a username, or some other sort of error. Sometimes it takes a bit of retrying to get it to work. In some instances I’ve seen it say you need 25 Likes on your page to get it to work, but I’ve set up a username for a page with no Likes after a bit of retrying.
As big as Facebook is I’ve had a number of issues with their system being bug-ridden and difficult to use. If you get an error you’re lucky, and even then the error is more than likely not descriptive of what the issue is and how you can correct it.
Step 8. Add a button to your banner area.
The next step is to add a button to your banner area. Click the Add a Button button right below your cover photo. I suggest choosing a Contact Us button. After you choose the button type, click Next. You’ll be asked where you want the button to send people. Choose Website Link and enter the contact page of your website.
If you don’t have a contact page or wish to use the Learn More button, simply enter the home page of your website.
That covers the basic setup of your Facebook page. You’ll need to create Facebook Posts on a regular basis to get the benefits from having a Facebook Business page.
