Facebook
101 for Business: Your Complete Guide
Not using Facebook for business
yet? Wondering where to start? Already on Facebook, but not sure if
you’ve done everything right? Well look no further.
By the way, you’re not alone. There are still many business
owners and marketers who don’t quite know where to start—they struggle to gain
momentum and achieve measurable results from their efforts.
This post is designed to help you
understand what Facebook can do for your business and lead you through a
step-by-step process for getting started on building
a compelling presence and optimizing
your Facebook marketing.
STEP
1: Review Your Profile
Most likely, you already have a
personal profile. Facebook’s Terms of Use stipulate
you’re allowed one account in your
own real name. (If you don’t yet have a Facebook account, just go
to http://facebook.com and
register.)
Next, choose
your approach for using your personal profile. It’s entirely a personal
choice. You may wish to keep your profile for connecting only with friends you
already know and family members. Or, you may wish to blend both your personal
and professional worlds.
We recommend you use your profile for a mix of both personal connecting and
professional networking. Regardless of how you choose to use your
profile, you’ll want to make use of Friend Lists and adjust your privacy
settings so that you control who sees what content.
Go to the Edit Profile section
of your profile to edit each of these areas:
You can get to the Edit Profile area
by first clicking the Info tab, then the edit pencil in the top-right corner.
Also, it may help to know that anytime you edit much of this information—such
as changing your profile picture, your relationship status, your bio, etc.—a notice goes out to your friends in
their News Feeds (unless you previously adjusted your privacy
settings very tightly!).
Remember to click the blue Save Changes button on each
section if you make changes!
Your Year of Birth
Under the Basic Information section, We strongly suggest not
showing your year of birth as a layer of security.
Update
Your Bio
Check to make sure your bio and
contact information are the way you want them, ideally in a first-person, conversational tone.
We also recommend filling out the “mini bio” section just under your profile
picture (click the edit pencil); you get 245 characters and can include links.
Check
Your Photo
In today’s social context, stay away
from overly formal photos. Instead go
for a relaxed, informal—yet professional—look. Crop your picture to your
head and shoulders only; when your thumbnail appears around Facebook, you want
it to be recognizable. Also, stay away from using group photos of you and other
people. If a potential key contact doesn’t know you yet, he/she won’t know
which one is you.
If your profile picture is more than
three years old, it’s time for an update. Your goal is to have people come up
to you when they meet you in person and say you look exactly like your picture.
This actually helps to build trust.
Select
Your Relationship Status
Over the years, Facebook has added a
few more possible relationship status choices. If you wish to remain private about this area
of your life, select the blank choice and your status won’t be shown at
all. There is an area in the privacy settings where you can choose who sees
your relationships settings.
Understand
How Likes and Interests Work
As you fill out the various books,
movies, music, etc., that you like, Facebook will automatically
connect you to the related Facebook Page/Community Page for those interests.
When you begin to type the word, select from the drop-down:
Grow Your Network
Facebook allows you a maximum of 5,000 friends and I
suggest—over time—you look to optimize this maximum. Having key contacts as friends
allows you to maintain a more personal connection with them.
For professional networking
purposes, proactively seek new friends who
may be influential people in your industry and related industries, prospects,
media contacts, people you admire, potential collaborators, and so forth. Just
be mindful to not overdo the outgoing friend requests in any one session.
Facebook views this as potentially spam behavior and you run the risk of your
account being deactivated. Twenty requests at a time is a safe number.
STEP
2: Make Friend Lists
Friend Lists on Facebook allow you to do three things:
§ Control which of your friends see what content you publish
§ Filter your News Feed stories.
§ Control who can see that you’re available on Facebook Chat.
First, you’ll need to make at least one Friend List. Go to
Account > Edit Friends:
Then click Create New List:
A pop-up box appears with all of
your friends, so give your list a name and select the friends you wish to add.
You can have up to 100 lists,
with up to 1,000 friends in each list. Friends can be in multiple lists.
Nobody knows which list of yours they might be on; this is for your own private
use.
NOTE: You
can also add Facebook Pages to Friend Lists, which we highly
recommend for ease of reading your News Feed!
Suggested Friend Lists might be: Family, Buddies,
Colleagues, Clients, Students, Key Contacts, Favorite Facebook Pages, and so
on.
Filter
Your News Feed Stories
On your home page (News Feed page), click the link for
Friends and you’ll see your Friend Lists there. You may need to click the
“More” button if you have several lists. You can now view your friends and
Facebook page activity via these lists.
If you’d like to have your default view be a certain list,
here’s a fun trick: Each of your Friend Lists has its own unique URL. Open the
one you want to go to first in a new tab (right click), then bookmark that
particular URL. Now that will be the default page view that opens.
Control
Your Facebook Chat Availability
Chat can be very distracting. However; you may wish to show yourself as being online to a
select group of individuals via a Special Friends List!
Click on the very bottom right of your window where
it says “Chat.” If you’ve already created your Friend Lists, you’ll
see a list pop up. Beside each list, you’ll see a little “slider” that you can
turn from green to grey. Green tells your friends in that list you’re online
and grey shows you as offline to friends in that list.
To go offline completely, select Options > Go Offline.
STEP
3: Adjust Your Privacy Settings
One of the many questions we are asked
frequently is, “How do I know what is public and what is just between me and
the person I’m talking to on Facebook?” The short answer is simple: the *only* communication that is private
between you and another person is email. Otherwise, all your own wall
posts, posts on friends’ walls, comments, likes, photos, videos, links,
activity on Groups and Pages and likes on external sites are visible to
friends, friends of friends or everyone, depending on your privacy settings.
Facebook
has received much criticism for their seeming lack of care about privacy. Yet, mostly, this pushback has been things like the Beacon fiasco and, more recently, the Instant Personalization feature. The fact is, Facebook offers extremely granular
privacy settings so for every piece of content you publish, you can
control who sees it and who doesn’t. That’s where the complexity—and
confusion—arise.
The best way to set your privacy settings is to go for the
Custom option:
Click Customize Settings and for
each section on the next page, choose whether you want Everyone, Friends of Friends, Friends
Only or a Custom setting:
We recommend using a custom setting for “Posts by Me.” That
way, your default for any content you publish can be viewable by Friends of
Friends except certain lists. You can override the default at any time on the
Publisher.
STEP
4: Set Up a Facebook Page
Once you’re happy with the way
you’ve chosen to use and configure your profile, it’s time
to set up your Business Page, often referred to as a “Fan Page.”
Previously, we would join these pages by clicking the “Become a Fan” button;
however, Facebook changed this to their new “Like” button.
With Facebook’s millions of active users—half of whom log on daily for an
average session time of 55 minutes—having
an active Facebook page helps gain tremendous visibility for your business and
meets your prospects/community where they are. Contrary to popular
belief, you do not need to “max out” your personal profile first. The time to
start a Facebook page is right away!
Study
Other Facebook Pages
To get a sense of what’s possible
for your own Facebook page, look at a variety of examples in your own industry
and related industries.
Recommended
Six-step Approach to Building Your Facebook Page
#1: Objective
First, be clear on what your primary purpose is for your
Facebook page. Examples include raising brand awareness, enhancing
customer service, building your email list, driving traffic back to your blog,
building community, etc. You may have multiple objectives, and that’s fine; be
sure to prioritize your objectives.
#2: Design Strategy
Once you’re clear on the
objective(s) of your Facebook page, the design needs to reflect that. Say your
primary objective is to build your email list. You’ll need to feature at least one opt-in box.
#3: Content Strategy
Ideally, just as with your blog,
you’ll have an editorial guide (or content matrix) which includes a plan for
publishing a mix of updates, photos, videos, and links. Depending on the nature of your business and
your overall objective, for the most part, it’s best
to publish a mix of your own content and some other people’s content.
#4: Promotion Strategy
Now you’ve built it and need to
ensure “they come!” There are many
ways to promote your Facebook page inside Facebook, outside
Facebook and offline.
#5: Engagement Strategy
Now you’re starting to gain
traction! But you’ll need to allocate resources to ensure your Facebook page is
being monitored and moderated—if not always by you, then by your team. If one
of your objectives is to enhance customer service, you’ll want to be prompt in responding to fans.
