Creating a Facebook page for your group or organization has many benefits: it makes your business available in Facebook searches, it allows you to connect personally with your followers, it helps you reach larger groups of people, and it gives you deeper insights into your audience. Your page serves as an extension of your business, so you want to make sure the page is set up to represent you well. Here are the basics you’ll want to pay attention to and how to get started with them.
Cover photo: This image sits at the top of your profile page and rests behind your logo/profile photo as a backdrop. The cover photo is a more flexible space and because of the larger size, you have more real estate to work with to be creative. Your cover photo could include brand messaging, campaign promotions, or images that represent your group.
Profile photo: This sits on the bottom left of your cover photo and is how Facebook users are able to identify you. It’s a small thumbnail that is attached to everything you do on Facebook – from posting in a group, to posting on your own timeline. The profile photo also shows up on all of your posts. When choosing your profile photo, pick something that’s easily identifiable.
About section: The about section is a tab in the navigation bar that sits under your profile and cover photos. This section includes two sections. The first is your page information, which is where you can share details about your company or group. The second is milestones, which lets you share important events and the history of your brand.
Timeline: Your Facebook page gives you the ability to post updates for your followers. Posting on Facebook is a great way to build your audience and connect with them. These posts can be a mix of text, images, links, non-native video (like a YouTube link), native video (a video posted directly on the Facebook platform), and photo albums. Typically, photos and videos get more views than strictly text posts. Regardless of what you post, increasing your reach is directly related to sharing information and interacting with your followers.
Tabs: Tabs now sit in two places on your Facebook page: on the left side of your timeline and in the navigation bar under your cover photo. Tabs can be used to host apps, which can help a business extend their capabilities directly on their page, including running contests, connecting to your other social accounts, and more. To see what is available and choose apps to add to your page’s tabs, visit the Facebook App Center. The benefit of using tabs instead of directing a user right to a landing page is that the Facebook user is able to stay within the Facebook system and doesn’t navigate away from your page.
Insights: Visible only to the page admins, Facebook pages are set up with an Insights tab. This allows you to see the analytics of your activity on the page. These analytics can help you identify your audience more specifically, see what get the most engagement, and track the volume of your traffic and fan building activity.
Setting up these basics on your Facebook page and knowing where to find and how to use them will help you get your Facebook page off to a good start.
