Yet another post on Facebook Business Pages

Facebook allows for custom creation of fabulous pages. They (Facebook) call them Fan Pages but really they are Business Pages.  Instead of “Friends” your Page collects “Fans”.  Hey, I’m not a big Fan of the term either.

What can a Facebook Business Page do?  Almost anything. The best analogy is that a Facebook Business Page is a website/blog within Facebook.  One of the most important things about a Page is that it separates your Personal (family, friends, church, and old girlfriends from 20 years ago) from your Professional Persona of today.  Fans of your page do not see the Church BBQ pictures.  The only Politics, Sex and Religion they’ll see is what you chose to share with them.    You still can have personality (and should).

Yes you can get a Custom Vanity URL for your Page if you have 100 Fans.  You do not need to have 100 fans to create a page.

Here’s 7 reasons why your business needs a FB page.

1. Pages allow a business to “Publish to the Stream” (this shows up on your fans homepage)
2. Pages allow a business to engage fans with Rich Media (video, pictures, events)
3. Pages let a business analyze how fans are interacting with the Insights Dashboard (FB has deep analytics)
4. Pages let a business increase SEO (pages show up in higher Google keyword searches)
5. Pages allow you to run highly targeted demographic ads to attract only those that are relevant to your business.
6. Pages allow you to arrange Tabs in the order you like (with the exception of the Wall and Info)
7. Pages allow you to force a particular tab to open first for new visitors.  Example: You can have a tab that introduces your team, your area, or you.

Do I have a Facebook Page?

It’s easy to tell. Pull up your URL.   If under your picture (top left) it says “Edit Page”  – then it’s a PAGE!

Here’s http://facebook.com/MikeMuellerConsulting

If under your picture you see “View Photos of Me” – that’s a Profile!

That’s almost everything you need to know about Pages.

There’s just one more thing…

It’s easy to create a Page on Facebook.  It’s easy to draw people to the page.  What isn’t easy is to keep them there.  You need to have compelling content.

If your page has just the “Wall”, “Info” and other stock tabs – your new found Fans will be out of there before the page loads! It’s easy to automate new inflow of content.  You can bring in blog posts, Tweets, Flickr, most anything and do so automatically.