Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Facebook now allows users to create dedicated "pages" for businesses, products, brands, etc. I setup our page this weekend and thought I would share some insights for those thinking about doing this.

1. You will need a personal Facebook account to setup a business page. The reason is that business pages are managed and created from within your personal account as well as accessed via your personal login. So if you try to setup a business page first--which you can--you will actually be going through both setups at the same time. I was unaware of this and was a little confused that it kept asking for my personal information. My advice would be to setup your personal page first then add your business page afterwords.

2. Once I realized I had created both personal and business profiles I tried searching for my newly created busisness page. It would not come up in my search results. To fix this you need to become a "fan" of your business page. Apparently without any fans your page can`t be seen when you search.

3. Setting up the biz page is easy with relevant fields for your company description, mission, products, founded date, etc.

4. Groups vs Pages: Pages are new, but many companies have already setup groups for their product or business. I had found a few that had both a group and a newly created business page, which to me seems redundant. The key benefit of pages is the ability to access the new Facebook ad platform, which is pretty cool and described below:

5. Focused Ads: I only played around with this for a few minutes but it seems like a pretty cool way to focus your ad dollars. From your business page you can create a capaign which allows you to pinpoint demographic info, location, keywords, etc for your campaign. When you fill this information in Facebook calculates the potential number of users that fit your target profile. For example, Single, male, age 25-35, graduated from x college, lives in x state, has keyword interest like wine, wine drinking, red wine, etc, might show 5,000 users. Change a variable, and the user number is automatically recalcuated. Your ad will only go to this group of users.

Next step is to set your daily budget and how much your willing to pay per click through. High bids gives you better exposure. I might try a small experiment in the future to see how this works. I have read some folks getting good results at $.20 - $.50 per click. Overall, a pretty cool system.

5. I was very surprised how many other business in my industry--mostly Wine 2.0 folks and other bloggers--were setup on Facebook. I made several connections in just a few days. Not to mention, all my other freinds, associates, etc, that have pages and who will become part of our viral network. 

I wold love to hear others thoughts about how they are using Facebook.

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Jeremy Cote
Owner
Covered Bridge Cellars, LLC

blog.coveredbridgecellars.com

Thanks, this is helpful info.  We`ve been thinking about setting up a presence on Facebook for business purposes.  We`re not quite ready because we don`t yet have our site up, but we`ll do it when it`s time.

It`s cool to see Facebook embrace the business marketing aspect of social networks, separate it from the more personal connections, yet roll it into the whole system.



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Steve Lowtwa

Hey CoveredBridgeCellars Team, thanks for the Facebook business page tips. Like Steve, I`ve been wondering if Facebook and/or MySpace and/or ?? would be a place to put a business presence.

Sounds like FB is moving that direction.

Success to You!

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scottg
Supporting Evidence
'worth a thousand words'
Supporting Evidence on Twitter

Here is something else to consider, from cnnmoney.com:

"Facebook’s unique audience grew by 1.5 million people in October, according to a report released this week by Nielsen Online. That’s five times the rate of larger rival MySpace, which grew by about 300,000.

If the numbers are accurate, it means Facebook, the second-largest social network, continued its surge. MySpace logged 58.8 million unique visitors in October, up 19 percent from a year before; Facebook logged 19.5 million, up 125 percent."

Your a stats guy so I`m sure you see the appeal of FB. 

: )

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Jeremy Cote
Owner
Covered Bridge Cellars, LLC

blog.coveredbridgecellars.com

The thing about facebook is that unless you are a member you can`t view the site... something about that whole concept bothers me. So, every time I happen to land in a site that requires I become a member just to browse I simply click away.

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Cleanliness the Mark of Elegance                       www.DelColl.com

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scottg
Supporting Evidence
'worth a thousand words'
Supporting Evidence on Twitter

Okay, thanks for the tip. What I would really like to do is have my business name as the facebook page name. I know it is possible because people are doing it. (An example: search for "boutique" or "store" on friends finder) All these businesses have their names on the facebook page and can add friends and then when they put an update on their wall, all their "friends" who are really their customers, they get an email update just like a regular facebook. Does anyone know how this is done? I`ve tried and tried and can`t seem to get it!

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Elisa Irvolino
The Drapery Lady

How do I start the business account? I created an account through the business account setup and of course they asked for personal information. So now from there how do I create my business page?

Hey guys,

Great site!

Can you help me with this scenario?  I created a Facebook page for a client before they had "business" accounts.  Therefore it is set up like a personal account.

1) Did I transgress any Facebook rules?
2) Is there really any difference in the types of accounts?
3) Can I somehow switch this to a business account?
4) Will I lose all of the info on the current account?

Thanks in advance for any insight.




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Shawn Devlin
Owner
Rockwall Data Systems