A Facebook fan page is like having a Facebook profile dedicated to your business. While you could make a profile for your business, Facebook will likely flag it and remove the profile, leaving your customers and prospects without a way to connect with your brand on Facebook.
Instead of a profile, you want a fan page for your business. Fan pages are a way for your customers and prospects to identify with you and associate who you are with your brand as well as share the page with others.
Take a moment and define the purpose of your fan page. If you define the purpose of your page as only to sell more, then you need to take a step back. While social media does help businesses promote their brands and sell more products, consumers can always tell when that’s the only reason a brand is online.
Like all forms of social media, your potential ‘fans’ are looking at your page and asking themselves one question, “What’s in it for me?” What you have to figure out is how to best give something back to your Facebook fans. Some fan pages provide coupons, resources or helpful tips. Knowing what you’ll provide your clients in advance will help guide you as you create the page.
Once you’ve determined the purpose of your fan page, it’s time to build it. You can start building your fan page by signing in to your Facebook account. You want to sign in with the one that will be associated with your fan page. After you’ve signed in, visit: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php.
Choose your brand name carefully to appeal to your target audience. For instance the company Victoria’s Secret didn’t create a fan page for their brand. They created one for their new line Victoria’s Secret PINK. By doing this, they targeted the audience most likely to purchase their products (college age females).
Now that you’ve chosen your page name and category, make sure you upload a high resolution photo of your logo or one of your most popular products. The goal here is to choose an image that will instantly spark brand recognition in a consumer’s mind.
Next, add some text to the information tab. Hint: you can use text from your about page or any other page on your website. You can even include testimonials for your business. You can import your company blog to the notes section using RSS feeds.
This means new blog posts are automatically posted on your page’s wall. If you want to create a custom landing page, then try Static FBML. Use the search bar to find it and on the left hand side, click ‘Add to My Page.’
This will add an application to your page that allows you to post raw HTML code and have it display correctly to your fans. After your page is set up, make sure you update it two to four times a week so your fan base will continue to grow.
