Promoting your business on Facebook? Here's how

Almost everyone you know has a Facebook account and your business should be there too. Facebook offers users two ways to create a presence on the channel. Facebook Profiles are for people like you, your friends and family, whereas Facebook Pages are for businesses and organisations.

The difference between the two is important because they are designed to do different things. One connects you with friends and the other allows customers and prospects to follow or like you.

If you're currently using Facebook to market to your customers and clients, we’ve listed some of the reasons why a Facebook page is the better option, and some easy tips to building your following and engagement.

Follow the rules – It’s actually technically against Facebook’s rules to use your profile for business. But don’t worry, if you are currently using your profile account, it’s quick and easy to set up a page. Plus, you’ll find it gives you far more functionality to grow your loyalty and engagement.

Personal Profiles are limited to 5,000 friends – Everyone has plans to grow, and every business should have the potential to grow. If you want to scale,  you need to do it on a Facebook business page.

Facebook Pages are easier to connect with – On your personal profile, you build your network by accepting and requesting friends. This works fine with your personal network but is administratively hard for a business. On Facebook Pages, people can like or follow you which is much easier for them and you. You don’t need to do anything. The people who like or follow your Page can get updates in their News Feed.

Privacy considerations  – This relates to the point above. By using a profile instead of a Business Page, you’re inviting privacy complaints from people who have to connect as a ‘friend’. Here’s why: Most people set their default privacy to reveal a lot of personal information only to their friends and may not want to share this level of information with your business. Your customers have more control and more privacy when they like or follow your business page.

Business Pages are more professional  – On your page, you can keep it business related and customer focussed. Social media is all about authenticity – so you should portray your personality but probably not the pics from your latest holiday. When you set it up as a business page, you can share information about what you do. A page has a category, a mission statement, products, awards and founded date. However, if you set up a business as a personal profile, your business non-relevant information such as a gender, a birthday and relationship status!

More functionality via Facebook Tabs – Use the tabs to explain more about who you are and what you do.

• Provide a video introduction
• Feature your products
• Highlight the history of your company
• Provide a newsletter opt-in form if you regularly create one.

On your page, you can provide your location, your business hours, and contact details. You can let customers post reviews and drive visitors back to your website.

Business relevant options – On your Facebook Business page, you can restrict your audience by country and age. You also have access to moderation and profanity blacklists to control the conversation.

In-house marketing management – Pages allow you to give other people in your organisation access so they can edit and update your page as well as respond to messages.

Connect with customers and reach marketing goals – Advertising with Facebook is another benefit of business pages. You can create ads from scratch or boost high performing posts to reach an even wider audience.  You can also run promotions and carry out surveys.

Encourage people to take action – Add a call to action button to encourage people to do something such as shop now, get in touch, book an appointment or sign up.

Insights – You have access to the metrics on how your posts performed and who engaged with it. You’ll be able to see what customers did, such as how often they like, comment or share posts.

Build Brand awareness online – Basically the more engagement with your brand, the better chance you will be found online and have your products and services in front of more eyes. So once you have set up your business page, start posting regularly.

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