Facebook Pages 301 – Using Your Page

{As Facebook is an ever-changing entity, as of April 2010, some of the information in this blog post may be out-of-date. I’m working on updates. ~H}

You understand how Pages differ from personal profiles and you’ve created your first Page.  Now let’s cover the basic aspects of using the Page to communicate with your Fans/customers.

Help!  I can’t find my Page!

It’s common for people to create a Page and then not know how in the hay to get back to it!  While you are logged into FB, click on the “Ads & Pages” icon in the bottom left-hand corner (just as you did when you wanted to create the page).  Now that you are a Page administrator, you will see a different screen than you did the last time.  You should see a screen that looks like this:

From here, you can either click on the “Pages” link at the top, which will bring you to a list of all your Pages.  Or, just click on the Page name under “Recent Page Activity”.

What is my Page’s URL?

If you arrive at your page through a link on your profile, or via a search, the display URL will be some long, convoluted thing with multiple numbers, symbols and letters.  It will look something like this:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Windsor-ON/Heather-Scent-Aromatherapy/27114819226?sid=e4fa82228caf6ecc253d0b941a7d1469&ref=search

Sure, if you click on that, it will take you to my page.  But it’s so unsightly!  All you really need is the information up to the end of the first set of numbers, like this:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Windsor-ON/Heather-Scent-Aromatherapy/27114819226

You can even go one step further and delete your location (the location will only be there if you signed up as a local business), like this:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Heather-Scent-Aromatherapy/27114819226

Don’t try deleting the numbers; They need to be there.  Vanity URLs for FB Pages are available only to mega-celebs.  And something tells me that Madonnna and Bono are not reading my blog for tips on how to create a FB page!

There is also an application you can use to shorten the URL.  It has its pros and cons.  Pro – short URL for your Fan Page.  Con – anyone who doesn’t currently use the application will be taken to a landing page for the app. before being able to click through to your page.  Check it:  http://artist.to/heatherscent

UPDATE:  Facebook has announced that they will now be allowing vanity URLs (Usernames) to all Business Pages.  If you have 1000+ fans, the option is available as of June 13th.  But again, if you have 1000+ fans, you aren’t reading my blog!  For the rest of us, we can start choosing our usernames on June 28th.

ANOTHER UPDATE:  Vanity URLS are now available to anyone with 25 fans or more.  Go to http://www.facebook.com/username to claim yours.  Please be aware that if you haven’t chosen a username for your personal profile/account yet, you’ll need to that first.  Then you can pick a different username for your Page.

How do I get Fans?

You can start building your Fan base by letting the people on your Friend list know that you now have a Page.  Under your Page’s profile picture, click the arrow next to “More” to expand the list of options.  Next click “Suggest to Friends”.  Check off the names of any Friends you think would be interested in your Page.  You may only send 20 notifications a day, but you wouldn’t want to be sending more than that anyway.   Of course, your BFFs will have to become your Fans whether they want to or not because that is just what friends do! 

 

 

If you are an Etsy seller, there are daily posts in the Promotions or Etc… Forums that share Fan page URLs.  Just do a search for “Facebook” on the Forums.  Remember not to post your URL outside of the Promotions or Etc… forums!  If someone is asking a technical question about FB on the Business forum and everyone starts adding their URLs, the thread will get moved to the Promos section, and the original poster may never get the help they needed.

When you become a fan of someone else’s Page, you will be doing it under your personal name.  However, once you “fan” a Page, you have the option to “Add to my Page’s Favourites”.   The list of Pages that you ‘favour’ should appear somewhere on your Page’s profile, either in the Boxes tab, or on the sidebar.

When one of your Fans makes a comment on something on your Page, it will show up in his or her News feed.  Then their friends will see it in their Highlights (i.e., “Stefanie commented on Heather Scent Aromatherapy’s link”.) Now people that are friends of Stefanie (whom I may not know), may get curious and click the link.  They see my page, they like it and then they Fan me.  Then they make a comment on my Page….and the snowball grows.

Be sure to comment on other people’s Pages as well.  Since the comments will show up under your real name and not your Page’s name, I often ‘sign’ the comment with my username, Heather Scent.  That way, they can easily search for me on Etsy, or even plug that into a Facebook Search.  Be careful about posting your Page’s link on too many other Pages.  Some people may not mind it at all (I certainly don’t), but others might see it as you trying to horn in on their marketing territory, especially if you sell the same products.

What should I put on my Page?

One of the first things you will want to do is create a photo album with pictures of your products.  This way your Fans can browse through it whenever they want.  Make sure you keep the photos current.  When a product is no longer available, delete the photo, unless you are willing to custom- make another one.

Keep your page current, but don’t get spammy. Space your updates throughout the day, and try to avoid updating more than twice a day.  “Updates” include status updates, links, notes, photos, etc…  Each time you do one of those things, Facebook will publish a story in the Newsfeed of your Fans.  When you add new pictures to an album, publish them all at once, not one at a time.   No one wants to see your shop name 18 times in a row on their news feed.  That is a sure way to have someone Unsubscribe from your Page.  (When someone “unsubscribes”, that means they have hidden your updates from their News feed, but they remain a fan.  You can find out how many people are unsubscribing and how often by looking at your page Insights.  Insights are like Google Analytics for your Page – I’ll be talking more about them when I cover Advanced Topics in Facebook Pages.)

Keep the content interesting and relevant to your business and do not make every post a direct promotion.  For example, I often add links to great articles or books I’ve found about Aromatherapy or holistic health.   Constant, “Look what I made!  Buy my stuff!” posts get very old very fast and will lead to unsubscribers.

You may want to change the Settings on your Wall tab so that it is the default landing tab for your customers. Just click the “Settings” button in the upper-right corner of the News feed, and make the appropriate changes.  You can also control who can post to your Wall and what they can post.

You can also change the order of your Tabs – just drag & drop.  If you are wondering how I got a “Blog” tab on my Page, you’ll have to check out the Networked Blog application (see below – Advanced Topics).  

Next Up: Facebook Pages 401 - Advanced Topics

In the future, I will be blogging about:

How to create a badge for your blog (see mine?  Right over there <----!)

Using Insights

The Networked Blogs application, which makes posting your Blog updates to your Page a cinch. 

And any other topics I can think of pertaining to Pages!  If you have a question, feel free to ask.  If I know the answers, I’ll blog about it.  If I don’t know the answer, I will find it out and still blog about it!