credit: Facebook.com

credit: .com

How To Craft The Perfect

When you are running your own small , you have to be a bit of a DIY expert, especially if you are a sole trader or have such a limited budget that you cannot hire in professionals to help to boost your profile online.

Facebook has been around long enough now for you to understand how important it is for establishing your profile and building trust in your followers. However, your personal Facebook page is not the same as your business page, so should never be set up in the same way.

What’s the difference?

A Facebook business page should be used to market your business or service, and you set it up to be open to the general public so they can find out everything about you, and hopefully become a fan of your page.

Your own Facebook profile is very different. This is the place for your personal ‘stuff’, and you can control who sees your profile. People can connect to you by sending you a friend request, and you can choose to accept it or not.

What sort of business am I anyway?

When you start setting up your business page, you will have to choose what sort of business page you would like. Facebook offer you six different choices, so at first glance this can look pretty confusing!

As a small business owner, you will only really be concerned with two of the six options: “Company, Organization, or Institution” or “Local Business or Place.” If you are still unsure which one applies to your business, then let’s drill down further.

Do your customers visit you? Do you have a bricks and mortar shop or a permanent venue, or an office set up somewhere physical where customers and clients can drop in to discuss business face to face? If so, then you should choose “Local Businesses or Place” for your business page.

If you don’t actually meet people in the course of your work, for example if your business is entirely web-based, then your choice should be “Company, Organization, or Institution”. There is no ‘check-in option for this choice, so your fans will not be able to tell their friends that they are at your place of business.

Create the right image

You want to create the right impression for your business page, but you don’t want to go to extremes. A great profile picture helps to set the mood for your visitors, and so does your cover photograph, so remember to choose both wisely.

Putting up a profile picture of your pet pooch may work well on your personal profile, but is it really fitting for your business page? No. Not really. Your profile picture is not simply a way to decorate your page, it is how your fans will recognise you, along the same lines as your company logo or branding.

Your cover photograph is the first thing that your visitors will see when they visit your page, and it has a great impact on creating your first impression. Think of it as a way to tell your story to your visors in a visual way, so your cover photo should try to convey what your business is all about.

However, this is not the place for you to sell your products or services. Try to avoid posting promotional content or price lists etc. It needs to capture the attention of your visitors while encompassing your business message.

Try experimenting with a few profile images before deciding on the right combination, and remember to check the size and resolution of the images you use. You want to make sure they look good on your page. Choosing a poorly shot photograph with low resolution will look unprofessional, so it’s not simply a case of slapping up any old photograph.

What’s it all ‘About’?

Your potential fans will want to know all about you, so make sure you provide plenty of useful information in your “About” section. This is the area where you need to spend some time thinking about what information you need to convey to your visors when they are visiting for the first time. This is your opportunity to introduce your business or services to potential new fans and customers, so you need to give them a good reason to “Like” your page and come back regularly.

Put yourself in the mind of a visitor who is dropping in for the first time. What information would they expect to find here, and give them what they need to know. Take advantage of the customisable fields that Facebook offer you. If you have a shop or restaurant for example, include information about available parking spaces, opening hours, and what your specialise in – you may have a shop that sell women’s clothing and accessories, or a restaurant that specialises in Mexican food.

Create an impact

Your first post to your new business page should be a dynamic one! Imagine someone new coming along for the first time just after you have created your page, and all they see is a boring text based post that doesn’t say a lot.

Make an impact with your first few posts by including interesting visuals, images, infographics and video. Something that attracts the eye at first sight will encourage new viewers to read your posts and hopefully make them decide to like your page, and come back for more entertaining and informative posts.