If you own a business or work as a marketer for a business, then this is probably a post that will interest you most. However, individuals might want to create a page for themselves, be it a hobby or whatever.
Last time I checked, Facebook had reached the 400 million member mark, of which 50% of these people logged into the site every day. Another interesting fact is that Face book is quickly catching up to Google in terms of the number of searches being performed every day. With this in mind, it’s easy to see how having a good presence on Face book is essential.
Right, so let’s look at creating a page in Face book, here are some instructions, I’m skipping the signing up for accounts and so forth:
- Once you’re logged into Face book, look for Adverts and Pages on the left hand side of the logged in Home Page, not your profile page.
- When you click through to Adverts and Pages, click on “Pages” on the left.
- Now you want to click on the “+ Create Page” button on the right.
- You will now be taken through a number of steps, remember to use accurate and real information. From an SEO point of view, use your keywords in descriptions and so forth.
One of the most common trends with Face book Pages is creating an entrance page. In other words, instead of just arriving at a normal page, you create one which is exciting. The whole idea behind a Face book page is to get people to LIKE the page, this means they can “enter” the page, read all the news, engage with other users and play a role. The other bonus is that when a person LIKES a page, it says so on their profile and all their friends see it, this has the whole viral marketing potential, so by encouraging people to like your page, you send up spreading the world really quickly.
Creating an “entrance page” does require that you understand HTML code, as there is an application called the Face book Static FBML application, which is what you will need to use to create these encouraging pages. The level of HTML required is very basic, most of the skill lies in the innovative idea and design you can come up with.
I would encourage anyone who runs a business, big or small, to put some time aside to create a powerful Face book page, and maintain it. So often I see pages being created and not maintained, engaging with your fans (people who LIKE your page) is priceless – if they’re logging in every single day, getting feedback from them on your products or services is very easy – mail’s old hat!
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask..
Thanks for posting this.
I have helped some of my friends create very basic pages on Facebook for their businessed, but I have always not been able to go beyond the basics. Problem is I don’t know HTML. For someone who isn’t very technical, do you recommend learning HTML or outsourcing?
Thanks
Adin
Hey Adin,
I was a bit upset with the post, I got the inspiration whilst I was out and actually raced home to write it and you can see in the first couple paragraphs I’m really getting into it, then I grew tired and just couldn’t keep the energy up. It’s decent, but I could have done a better job.
To be honest, you basically just need to create a nice big graphic, then the HTML would be as simple as learning how to center and include an image, literally like this: http://pastebin.com/3ty0djF9 – The code’s the easy part, it’s the design work that needs to attention..
Hey Chris, I notice on your Facebook page you don’t have a landing page? Or do you setup a separate link if you want people to land there.
I’m not sure yet if I think it is better for people to land on the profile page or use a landing page to get them to like.
With a big brand, I fell they are likely to ‘like’ just for being interested in that brand. Perhaps for smaller unbranded companies like mine or situations like your page, they may prefer to view what is going on first as to whether they are interested in joining.. What do you think?
Hey Mike, mine doesn’t, purely because I am not much of a designer and I can’t warrant spending the money on getting a designer to do a page for me, I’d rather spend money on getting a designer to work on this site, make sense?
I’m all for the landing page :)
I hear what you’re saying, big brands always have an upper hand. But, this is the sort of thing you can get done for a few thousand rand tops, based on that it’s worth it. I’d then run a Facebook Ads campaign pointing to the actual page, but that’s moving outside of this topic ;)
Hi Chris,
I have been working on my fb page. I just created a vanity URL and welcome page and it’s looking better. I want to ask you what your opinion is on the value of a fb page? Is it used to simply drive traffic or are there other benefits?
I would like to use it for other purposes but it seems I’m only using it for posting new posts and promotion.