Do you have a profile on Facebook? Have you seen those pages circulating around Facebook where your friends can become a fan of authors, movies, books and more? You can create a Facebook page as a way to promote your book or game, too. I’d like to help show you how.
- STEP ONE: NAVIGATE — Click on the Create a Facebook Page link. If you have an existing Facebook account, I recommend not logging in to Facebook until the prompt appears.
Please note that as of April 14, 2009, you will have to “verify” your account via an electronic signature. It appears that Facebook is trying to ensure that a live person is behind the page in a profile, so businesses can no longer appear anonymously.
Here is what Facebook is looking for, in their own words from their “Help” section: “The name you enter as your electronic signature should match the name on your account. If you have a business account with no name or profile, or are trying to create an account when you create your Page, please enter your legal first and last name as your electronic signature.”
STEP TWO: CHOOSE YOUR PAGE TYPE — Choose what kind of a Facebook page you want to create. The choices are: Local (For a company or business), Brand or Product (Self-Explanatory) or Artist, Band or Public Figure (Band, Musician, Writer, etc.) for a personal profile. For this example, I’m going to choose the third option.
STEP THREE: NAME YOUR PAGE — If you’ve chosen “Writer,” you’ll want to type in your author name. I don’t have a pen name, so I’m going to create a page for me. Once you’ve put in what name you want to be referred to and searched by, click on the blue “create page” button.
STEP FOUR: LOG IN — Log in to the prompt here, or create your Facebook log in.
STEP FIVE: CUSTOMIZE YOUR PAGE — Now that you’ve created your Facebook page, you have the ability to customize it in a number of different ways, specific to the page type that you’ve chosen. Here are a few of the ways that you can choose to customize your Facebook page.
- Add a Picture: The maximum filesize for an image is 4 megabytes. I’ve found that a good picture size to use is 250 pixels wide by 250 pixels tall because there is a lot of white space on the page.
Pull in Your RSS Feed: To pull in your blog or website’s RSS feed to ensure there is current content on your page, you’ll want to click on the “Add a Note” feature. On the right hand side in a small, grey box you’ll see “Notes Settings” where you can import your blog.
You will see your full expanded posts in the “preview,” but this is not how the RSS feed will show up in your Facebook page. Once you confirm the import at the bottom of the page, your RSS feed will display in the “Notes” box on a per post, per title basis.
Add Information: Underneath your profile picture is a place to add information about you, your brand or your product. I recommend adding one or two paragraphs of text written in a style appropriate for people who don’t know anything about you, your company or your product.
Add Video: If you’re playing around with video, I’d like to mention that there is an extra “verification” layer to use that option and the upload is not immediate. One option would be to have a shorter video in the “Video” box, and offer a link to your existing video by posting it on your wall.
Favorite Other Facebook Pages: If you are a company and have a product, you can add your product’s page as a “favorite” and vice versa. This is a good way to help your customers and fans become familiar with what you’re offering.
Rearrange Content: You may be looking at your page wondering where you can find photos or videos to add. If you don’t have content for every box, I recommend rearranging the elements on your Facebook page so the boxes that you do have content for show up first. I also recommend posting on your wall with a personalized message so the spot doesn’t appear to be empty.
STEP SIX: PUBLISH — After you’ve customized your Facebook page, you have to “publish” the page to make it live.
STEP SEVEN: PUBLICIZE — Now that you have your new Facebook page, you’ll want to publicize it and get “fans.” You can do that either through word-of-mouth advertising, through a Facebook ad or by adding a Facebook badge to your website.
- Adding a Facebook Badge: To add a Facebook badge to your website once you’ve created your page, refer to the “Help” section of Facebook. In this series of articles about How to Create a Facebook Badge, you’ll be able to read more about it. If you’re logged in to Facebook, you can also click on create a Facebook badge and follow the customization instructions.
For an example of a recent Facebook page that I had created, take a peek at Musicnotes.com on Facebook. Remember, that getting fans and people to interact on your Facebook page will take time. Regardless, it’s a good idea to know what Facebook promotional tools you have out there not just because this page creation is free — but because Facebook continues to be a popular social media outlet that you may want to consider branching into.
Hope you found this article helpful in your quest to promote you and your work. If you have a Facebook page you’re looking to promote, either send me or post the link in the comments below and I’ll follow up later this week with a list!
More From mlvalentine
Aimee Stinson December 23, 2008
Thank you.
Facebook is a good way to promote my book, The Championship Game.
Jenn Mears-Nickerson February 3, 2009
Thanks for a short but sweet tutorial! I have a client that wants to try Facebook for her business and this will come in very handy.
Ashleigh February 12, 2009
When you create this page, you mentioned that you have to sign in to Facebook at some point. Is it possible to create a new user profile just for that page? I wanted everything related to this page to go to my work email and not be associated with my personal profile/email. I assume it is like facebook “groups”, where there is an administrator as a contact for the page.
Monica Valentinelli February 12, 2009
Ashleigh, to create a Facebook page you’ll have to have a profile. You can start the process without logging into one, but it won’t allow you to create one without a personal profile. This is not like the Facebook groups, because the administrator isn’t visible as a contact for the fan page. The only way you can monitor the page as admin would be to login with the profile information you used to set it up.
If you find out differently or if they change this, let me know. After creating several pages, this is the only way I’ve seen that it will work.
Ramesh February 24, 2009
How can one have a customized URL for the pages? Like, http://www.facebook.com/Microsoft
Monica Valentinelli February 24, 2009
The title that you choose for your Facebook page will automatically be inserted into the URL. Facebook controls the URL construction, and they keep track of where visitors are coming from.
Here’s an example of a FB page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Music-Notes/32868705377
The space between “Music” and “Notes” was hyphenated in the URL, but occurred only after the name was chosen for the page.
Same thing here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/WINAMP/18942598151
Hope that helps!
Jane Hunt February 26, 2009
Thanks for explaining how to create the badge! Can someone tell me how to connect it to my fan page (not personal). I’ve been searching for this info for two weeks – PLEASE HELP!!!!
Thanks,
Jane
Monica Valentinelli February 26, 2009
Hi, Jane! You have to manually code the FB badge on whatever page you’re using it on. After you download the badge from FB, you have to upload it to your server and then use your FB page as the anchor text around it. There’s no automatic way to do that.
Sophie March 9, 2009
great info, thank you!
Leslie March 12, 2009
I just created a page a few days ago and did everything stated above, but it is not showing up as a “public” page. How do I change this?
Monica Valentinelli March 12, 2009
Facebook changed their promotional pages late afternoon yesterday. It’s quite possible that they’ve changed those parameters as well. I need to look into this more and email facebook this weekend.
Leslie March 12, 2009
Thanks Monica! I look forward to getting the new parameters when you have them.
Monica Valentinelli March 12, 2009
Appreciate the motivation. Admittedly, I’m not looking forward to it.
Mike D March 12, 2009
Hey Monica,
Great post by the way. Quick question.
I see some pages have a direct url for example, http:www.facebook.com/barackobama
Now when I create a page, my url is setup like this – http://www.facebook.com/pages/mypage
Where do I go to setup url without the pages?
Thanks for your help.
Mike
Monica Valentinelli March 13, 2009
There is no way to “set up” the URL through Facebook. That is not customizable and is controlled by Facebook. You can “try” emailing them directly, but they control the URL construct.
Hope that helps!
Leslie March 17, 2009
Hi Monica,
Turns out I started building our business page AFTER being logged into my personal profile. Is there anyway to disconnect the two without starting over?
Thanks!
Monica Valentinelli March 17, 2009
Unfortunately there is not. Either you’ll have to delete and start over, or email FB to see if they’ll transfer it to a different account. FB separates brand accounts from personal profiles, unlike other social media apps.
Sorry for the bad news!
Leslie March 17, 2009
No worries. Since the page was new as of last week, at least I don’t have that much to rebuild – or lose! Just so I get it right this time, I’ve done Step 1 outside of my account. Should I login to my account when prompted or set up a separate business account to keep the two totally separate?
Monica Valentinelli March 17, 2009
If multiple people are going to have access to the account, then I recommend setting up a separate business account. If it’s just you, you “could” do it through your personal, but then what happens if you leave that business? I feel it’s best to set it up under an account that everyone has access to. That way you can hand over the “keys” to FB if you leave.
Leslie March 17, 2009
Good point. Thanks for all of your time! This has been extremely helpful.
best frees snowboard videos March 18, 2009
great post! thanks
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Super-Stoker-Videos/54070558037?ref=ts
Dean March 18, 2009
After working with social media and online marketing since inception, I’m wildly confused and embarrased that I can’t figure out Facebook Pages.
Do you know of a tutorial that explains such as tasks as:
1. Once I create a Page within an exisitng profile (which I already did) how and where do I access that page again? I can’t find any links to get back to it.
2. I’ve seen references and instructions in the Facebook help section on how to send updates to fans. However, I can’t see any navigation to this feature. From FB help: “Page Admins can update their fans about new Page content, promotions, upcoming events, and more. Pages can send messages to either their entire fan base or target their update to fans in a specific demographic.”
3. It seems that there is no way to alert fans that you just created an event. So, is there anyway to utilize Events as an invation tracking tool?
Any direction to find these answers would be very welcome… Thanks, Dean
Monica Valentinelli March 24, 2009
On point #1 – Unfortunately, it is tricky to access your page after you create it, and it is not intuitive. The easiest way to do that would be to log in with your existing profile, and then type the first letter of your page title in the search box. It will automatically appear.
#2 – The “page update” feature is now a link in the new fan page, underneath your logo.
#3 – If you create an event, you’d have to follow up to fans with an update sending them the link. The content that appears in the fan page will not automatically filter through your fan pages. As of right now, the pages are not as interactive as they first appear.
Hope that helps!
Brian March 24, 2009
finally something helpful for my biz, mainstreetwings.com! thank you…although with the new layout of facebook, it seems that it could be a lot easier for them to add my fan pages to users. it’s almost hard to find now.
Monica Valentinelli March 24, 2009
Once someone becomes a “fan” of your page, then that page will appear in their updates. Getting more fans happens in one of two ways — virally or through your promotional efforts on your website. Most often, businesses will have a Facebook badge on their website’s “about” page.
Roberto April 1, 2009
Hi!
Only fans can read the “only fans” tab right to the “wall”…. that means if I put there an information only for fans about an exclusive event for fans… only fans can read or anonymous guests can read it also ?
Thanks in advance
Monica Valentinelli April 1, 2009
No, what that tab means is that your “fan” comments are grouped together — minus your updates. You can create a “closed” event for fans, but you have to invite them and do that as a separate action.
Dave April 5, 2009
Another question that seems to be obvious, but can’t seem to figure it out:
I have a new page for my brand which is associated with my Facebook profile. I want to make friends through the page (brand) account – not my personal profile, but it’s all going through my name – not the brand in the page.
(if you understood what I said!) do you have any ideas what how I can make friends via my brand/poage as opposed to using my own name?
Cheers!
Monica Valentinelli April 6, 2009
At this time, you “cannot” make friends with a brand like you can on MySpace or Twitter. Your fan page will be circulated virally for free; when someone becomes a fan, their action shows up in their friends’ news feeds. There are paid options to promote your fan page, but otherwise you’re stuck with your personal name.
I’ve opted not to make “friends” in that instance, and go for “fans” instead. Hope that helps!
Jennifer Oldroyd April 7, 2009
Thanks for all the tips! I’ve set up a facebook page, but cannot figure out how to make it public, so when you are logged out, you can still see the posts. Help!
Monica Valentinelli April 7, 2009
Facebook is having some technical errors today, so that could be part of your issue. Your “fan” page public view is whatever is on your page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/ceoMom/71376732999. If something is not appearing when you’re logged out, it is because that is the way FB functions. There is nothing you can do to change that other than to make a recommendation.
Jennifer Oldroyd April 8, 2009
Thank you so much!
joana April 14, 2009
hello
i have been reading your posts,
i was trying to create a page, as i had done before, i just had to send my id to prove i was authorized, but now they ask me to enter an electronic signature, which i have not… what should i do? how should i get one?
Monica Valentinelli April 14, 2009
Hi Joana,
The “electronic signature” is a brand new feature that they installed just recently. Here is the information regarding that from Facebook:
“The name you enter as your electronic signature should match the name on your account. If you have a business account with no name or profile, or are trying to create an account when you create your Page, please enter your legal first and last name as your electronic signature.”
Tracy April 16, 2009
Hi Valerie,
I have a couple questions:
Can my non-profit business (employer) have their own “profile?”
How do you “contact” Facebook?
I was told by my CEO to remove our business profile because it was not allowed by Facebook. Soooooooo, I created a Page for my employer through my personal Facebook account. I am confused. I would much prefer to have the Page through my employer profile rather than my own for obvious and previously mentioned reasons.
I can find no where to actually contact Facebook with these and other questions. As a personal user I never cared, but as a business user, some help would be nice.
Thank for your help on my behalf.
Tracy
Monica Valentinelli April 16, 2009
Hi Tracy!
Profiles must be attached to a human being, which means that you can only set up a page if that human being has a profile. Facebook appears to be getting strict about this in the sense that the profile has to include a “real” first and last name. That profile is the “only” way businesses can become “friends” with their customers.
Once you have a profile set up, you can create a fan page for any business, non-profit or not. The fan page is a separate entity from the profile page; on the fan page you can utilize different tools to promote your non-profit organization to obtain fans.
Contacting Facebook directly is very challenging, but it can be done. First, visit their Help menu to read more about the Pages. Through some hunting and pecking you might be able to find a way to contact their team, especially if you have an advertising or business-facing question.
http://www.facebook.com/help.php?
Hope that helps!
Monica
Tracy April 16, 2009
Hey Valerie,
Have you written any Blog tutorials? I’m also going to start a Blog for my employer and could use some hints and tips-your style is easy to read and understand. We are going to use WordPress.
Thanks,
Tracy
Monica Valentinelli April 16, 2009
Hi Tracy,
I have written tutorials before; I’ve done quite a bit of technical writing in the past. Feel free to contact me to follow-up.
Kind regards,
Monica
eric May 1, 2009
I created a page but didn’t publish it yet. I can’t seem to locate it when I log into my personal account. Any suggestions
Monica Valentinelli May 6, 2009
Hi Eric,
It looks like FaceBook removed some of the previous navigation. Recommend logging in, then navigate to the bottom of the FB site. There’s a blue link called “Advertising.” When you click on that link, you’ll see a tab for “Pages.” There you’ll find you’re unpublished pages.
Wonky, but it works.
James Dolle June 20, 2009
I created a page, but cannot find anywhere the option to “Add a Note,” nor “Note Settings,” in order to pull in my blog’s rss feed. I keep going back looking all over for it, but it’s not there. What am I missing?
Monica Valentinelli June 21, 2009
With the new layout of the Facebook pages, you have to go to “Edit Settings.” Under that section, you should see a number of items you can modify, including “Notes.” You’ll have to click on the little pencil icon to edit it.
James Dolle June 22, 2009
Thank you, I found it now and did it.
Chris July 28, 2009
What makes a Fan Page show up on the sidebar of people who are not yet fans?
I’ve noticed that when logged into my personal profile, there are blurbs about fan pages on the side. Did the owners of those fan pages have to pay to have their ad show up? Or was it something in my profile that triggered the fan page blurb – figuring I might be interested in it?
Monica Valentinelli August 2, 2009
You can recommend that people become fans of the page. Facebook has also been rolling out changes based on privacy settings, so some of the new functionality will be trial-and-error until things settle down.
Nicole August 7, 2009
We have created a page for our company, and would like to receive email updates when items are posted to our wall, etc. However it does not seem to be going that. (For my personal fb account, I get an email saying that “Mary wrote on your wall”). Can you get an email to be sent when someone writes on your “Page” for a company? If so, where is that in the settings?
Monica Valentinelli August 7, 2009
At this time, I have not seen any functionality for email updates when anyone posts to your wall on a fan page. It has to be monitored manually, which is different from the profile.
Karina August 20, 2009
Hi, Monica! Is there a way to remove an update from our company Facebook page?
Monica Valentinelli August 20, 2009
Simply login to Facebook with the account that set up the page in the first place and mouse-over whichever update you need to remove. A little box will appear that says “Remove.” Click on that and it’ll remove it from the page. It may, however, still be circulating in the Facebook feed. No guarantee that it will remove it completely.
Karina August 20, 2009
Hi, again – I’m hovering!! But there’s no remove button. Any other ideas? I’m looking at my View Updates page, in my admin profile. It was tied to a Discussion Post I had created – then shared. I deleted the Discussion Topic in hopes of deleting the Update, but no such luck…
Monica August 20, 2009
The “discussion group” is different functionality from the “updates” that show up on your wall. In order to delete something you’ve written as part of a group, you need to click on the link and delete the post once you’re inside the topic. Sometimes caching, ad block software or anything like “no script” (e.g. the things that remove Javascript functionality) can also affect how you interact with Facebook.
If you still can’t delete the content from your page after trying all avenues, I do recommend contacting Facebook directly. They may be able to help.
govind August 21, 2009
how to create something like facebook.com/cocacola
Monica Valentinelli August 29, 2009
Coca Cola and other big brands often create custom pages in house and pay a substantial fee to do so. I’m not 100% sure if there was a fee charged for Coke’s page, but what they created isn’t a standard feature for how Facebook pages typically work.
abeer September 28, 2009
Hi
thanks for the article, it is very helpful
I would like to ask about something
how can you change the displayed url of the page on facebook
many people have the url as:
http://www.facebook.com/PAGENAME
kindly inform me if you haw it can be done
Nicole October 1, 2009
Hi – We are wondering if there is a way to “share” a posting on a business page and it goes out to all the status update pages of our fans. (Our example is in careerbuilder.com – there is the button to “share” and we can easily see how to do that on our personal pages – but we would like to make the “share” feature work with our business page – to share a job posting that we have on careerbuilder.com). Would you happen to know how to do that?
(I know that we can post the link to that page, but then you have that messy link showing up at the top – just looks nicer if we can easily use the “share”
feature). Thanks in advance for any advice!!
Monica Valentinelli October 1, 2009
@abeer: For more information about setting up a page name URL, go to: http://www.facebook.com/username. The URL isn’t available for everyone; you need to have a certain number of fans to use it.
@nicole: When you “share” content through the Wall on your Facebook fan page, it will go through your FB fans profiles. Posting a link provides the same functionality as “share.” You can also add an RSS feed through the “notes” feature, which is probably what you want to do if you have a lot of content for job postings.
Jeremy Pope October 2, 2009
A great help in getting our Penguin New Zealand Travel Guide: North Island page up and running! Thanks a million. JP
Alyssa October 20, 2009
Hi Monica,
I already have a Facebook page made for my company. After poking around other business pages… I noticed many are customized. If you look at Victoria’s Secret, they have their background customized. Is there some type of codes to do this? Also I just added Static Fbml yesterday, is there codes to customize this box?
Thank you!
Monica Valentinelli October 20, 2009
Actually, if you click on the “Wall” you will see that the businesses use the same functionality as I’ve described above. What these businesses did is add custom code to a new tab on their wall and then changed their “wall” settings to show that tab. I recommend visiting this fan page from Facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/FacebookPages ). There you’ll find the information on additional applications you’ll need; the Victoria’s Secret fan page uses the Flash app.
You (or your company) will have to generate the code that you’ll need for any apps you install, including the Static FBML or the Flash plug-in; Facebook doesn’t provide that code customization.
Alyssa October 20, 2009
Thank you Monica! You were very helpful. One thing though- the Facebook pages link doesn’t work. Is there a different one?
Monica Valentinelli October 20, 2009
Should work now.
Brian October 20, 2009
How do you add pictures and separate paragraphs in “Boxes” on FB fan pages?
Alyssa October 22, 2009
New question of the day
Is there any way to receive a notification if a “fan” writes on our PAGE profile? Not the personal profile. Some of our fans are commenting on our page and we aren’t being notified.
Thanks for your help!
Alyssa
Monica Valentinelli October 22, 2009
@Brian – If you’re logged in as an Admin, you should be able to simply click on the plus sign and use that functionality. If you’re looking for something more customized, then you have to install one of the other page apps and add HTML code. See: http://www.facebook.com/FacebookPages for more information on things you can do.
@Alyssa – No, there is no notification for fan pages other than the Subscribe to SMS link (e.g. through the cell phone) which I don’t bother with.
Bert October 24, 2009
When I tried to set up a fan page I spent a lot of time uncovering the fact that I need a website to link to. This is something that should be stated much earlier in the process.
andres November 27, 2009
help me create a facebook game
Monica Valentinelli November 29, 2009
I’m sorry, but if you want someone to create a Facebook game, I recommend hiring a programmer to do it.
Christopher December 9, 2009
how do i create a permalink to statuses i make on facebook.. so when I send the link, only the status appears instead of the entire page.. Like this company did.
http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=195550161087&id=285521085042
Alyssa March 18, 2010
I am wondering if you can help me with switching our administrator users? One of our employees created our Facebook page under their personal email address. Since then, they switched employment with our company. Is there a way I can make a generic email for our page without re-creating the whole page? They have been recieving statistics about our page to their personal email and forwarding them on. Hope this all makes sense!
Monica Valentinelli March 18, 2010
It does make sense, but you’ll have to contact Facebook in order to get that situation resolved, especially since the administration for the page is tied to an email address off-site. Good luck!
Katherine Kane April 5, 2010
Monica,
First, thanks for this helpful information!
My blogs are set to “read more” on my website. So when I tried to import my blogs per your Notes information above, just the summary shows up. Plus, my most recent blog doesn’t come through. Any advice to pick up the most recent blog and to get the entire prior blogs?
thanks!
Monica Valentinelli April 5, 2010
The “notes” feature is tied to whatever settings you have on your feed, so if you don’t expose the full feed elsewhere, it won’t be able to pull in the fully exposed text. Also, there have been some timing issues with the “notes” not pulling in the feed, but there’s nothing you can do about that other than to try pulling in the feed again. I’ve noticed that the feature is pretty inconsistent; sometimes it’s spot on with the timing, other times it isn’t. That’s really on Facebook’s shoulders and not yours. Hope that helps!
surbhi May 2, 2010
THKS monica fr the info. i wanted to know sum stuff. other day i was creating a page and after entering the page name, it said
“Our automated system will not approve the name “MY PAGE NAME” because it contains a word or phrase that is blocked to prevent the creation of unofficial or otherwise prohibited Pages. If you believe this is an error, please contact our Customer Support team.”
can you highlight on this matter?
Monica Valentinelli May 3, 2010
I believe you would have to contact their Customer Support team to find out what the problem is. It’s possible that they are cracking down on unofficial IP or brand-related content, but it’s hard to say.
Alyssa July 22, 2010
Question – We have a business Facebook page for our business, so we only have fans. Our Electronics Department has been getting emails like this:
Hi,
The following person invited you to be their friend on Facebook:
Name -
Invite sent:
Jun 30, 2010
Other people who have invited you to join Facebook:
Name
Invite sent:
May 10, 2009
Name
Invite sent:
Jan 15, 2010
Do you have any idea what this is about or how to accept their invite? Thanks!
Hattie Guski
Invite sent:
Feb 8, 2010