Setting up your “brand page” on Facebook is an effective way to interact professionally with your audience, says Cara Crosetti, Los Angeles-based account director and web specialist with Wickware Communications Inc. of Toronto.
“It’s the first step in building a relationship,” she says.
Crosetti offers the following simple steps to help you create your brand page and get it up and running:
> Think visually
Creating a brand page on Facebook is an opportunity for you to put your creative skills to the test. One of the best ways to attract attention to your page is with a striking image.
“People are naturally attracted to pictures,” Crosetti says.
Be sure you have graphics to fit the large banner at the top of the page, as well as a smaller logo to fit in the space that would be occupied by the equivalent of a profile photo on a personal page.
Be sure to use graphics that are created specifically to fit these spaces. Don’t “stretch” your photos, which will give an amateurish look.
> Fill in all fields
Enter all the information needed to complete your brand page profile. This step is doubly important if you are an advisor with a small, independent firm. Offering ways for your audience to contact you in order to set up a meeting is an important objective.
> Learn the language
In the parlance of personal Facebook pages, users aim to attract “friends.” In the world of business brand pages, your objective is to attract “fans” who will “like” your page.
Once your page has received a minimum of 25 likes, you can get a vanity URL — for example, www.facebook.com/yourbusinessname. You choose the name you apply to your vanity URL. It could be your name, the name of your firm or your marketing tagline.
Having a vanity URL is important because it presents a cleaner appearance on other marketing materials, such as your business card and your email signature. And having your own URL, tailored to your business, is more professional than the usual string of code that would appear with a regular URL.
> Ask for “likes”
Simply creating your brand page and hoping people will visit and like you is not enough, Crosetti says. In order to get people to follow your information stream, you will need to give them a nudge.
Come out and ask people in your audience — clients, colleagues and acquaintances — to like your page. Mention that you have a new brand page on Facebook and would appreciate it if they would visit. Also, you could put a note in your next client newsletter asking readers to click onto your page.
This is the second instalment in a three-part series on using Facebook as a business-building tool. Next: Integrating your Facebook strategy with your overall marketing plan.