How do I set up a Facebook business page?

First of all, why do you need a Facebook page? If you haven’t yet grasped the social media concept – it’s like this – social media is a fast growing media channel that many businesses, and organisations are already utilising. One of the benefits, is its viral and sharing capabilities – if you offer something useful and valuable to your market they are likely to share it and spread the word for you. Be a leading authority in your field and share some of your knowledge, offer tips and advice, provide entertaining content. Ask yourself, would you want to share it with others? It’s important to consider what you are providing through your Facebook page and what you want people to do with.

Some retailers are using it for customer service interaction. Brand reputation is such a delicate balance to achieve, so to get the opportunity to successfully resolve any problems through a public channel like Facebook helps build customer loyalty and satisfaction. It is also already working for the likes of the Boots No7 brand - http://www.facebook.com/No7ProtectandPerfect which includes videos of user guides and discussions, and Musicians such as Goldfrapp have found big success - http://www.facebook.com/Goldfrapp promoting events and competitions.

So, to set up a Facebook page you will first need to set up a personal account – go to the Facebook.com and fill in the form (follow the easy instructions), then visit this link - http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php to set up the business page. Once you have 25+ fans (or people that ‘Like’ your page) you can create a unique address like this www.facebook.com/dell, so that you can use the easy to remember address on other marketing materials. Go to this link to set up the unique username. http://www.facebook.com/username.

Once set up fill your page with content that is valuable to your audience, offer free tips, advice, a place to voice their thoughts about your products/service. Most of all have some fun with it because this is social media with an emphasis on the ‘social’.