You know Facebook is good for fooling around. Believe it or not, you can also use Facebook as a funnel for generating leads for your business. The first step is to create a Fan Page.
A Page (aka Fan Page) is different from your Timeline or personal profile. Your Timeline is your personal and individual Page connected to your account. Facebook has some pretty strict guidelines about personal accounts to insure that you will always know who you are connecting with. You cannot share an account and you must use your real name—not your business name.
A Page is the place on Facebook for “businesses, organizations and brands to share their stories and connect with people.” You can set up a Page for your business and control it from your individual timeline. Once you set up your Page, start posting content, invite people to like it, and engage in conversation. With proper setup and management you will start converting visitors into leads or customers.
Sometimes it is hard to find the link to create a Page, so to make it easier just click here and follow the instructions that follow. Facebook will walk you through the process step by step.
Before you create your Page, there are a few things you should consider.
Administrators – Every Page has at least one person designated as an Administrator. By default, this is the person who created the Page. You can, however, invite other people to be administrators. It is useful to have more than one administrator so that both of you can post and manage the content on the Page.
Invitations – Start inviting people to like your Page right away. Likes aren’t important in and of themselves, but more likes means you can reach more people with your content. You can invite all your Facebook friends as well as people on your email contact lists. Facebook can walk you through the process but it’s good to think ahead so you can plan who you will invite.
Content – create a schedule to post content regularly. Keep your Page fresh and post content that your target audience really likes. The more your fans enjoy your content, the more they will engage with it by liking, commenting and sharing. Facebook uses a secret algorithm that identifies content and Pages that get more engagement and pushes that content out into more newsfeeds. Keep your postings short, use lots of photos and post regularly.
Keep in mind that though people come to Facebook to be enlightened and educated, they want to be entertained most of all. So keep your content both interesting and fun. Facebook is a place to be a little lighthearted and not too serious all the time.
Those are the basics. There is a lot more to turning your Facebook Page into a lead-generating machine, but this will get you started. Many small businesses and entrepreneurs use Facebook as one of their primary promotional channels because it is free, easy to use and has really powerful reach when you use it properly. So go set up your Page and get the Facebook ball rolling for your business.