Use your personal profile. While some may feel it wise to keep personal and business pages separate (depending on what’s on your personal page!), if you keep your personal page clean and professional, you can use it for growing your business. Here are a few ideas:
- In the Settings section of your business page, scroll down to Featured and add yourself as a page owner. A photo and link to your personal page will now appear on the lower left hand side of your business page.
- Post about your business on your personal page and tag your business. Type “@”then start typing your Page name until you can select it from the drop-down that appears. You can also just share posts from your business page to your personal page.
- Make sure your Workplace name is linked to your business page.
- Join relevant groups with your personal profile and then share content about your business page.
Automate to save time. Online automation platforms offer a way to automate your social media postings and see various social media accounts and analytics on one dashboard. No need to switch back and forth or log in to different accounts. Some free or low cost options include:
Boost a Post. The simplest way to get started on advertising is to boost a post that’s already on your page. Just hit that Boost Post button on the lower right hand side of a post to launch a dialog box that allows you to target an audience, set a budget, create a schedule and add a payment method. You can boost a post for as little as $5, and according to the options you select, you will get an estimate of how many people you will reach before you commit to the boost.
Add a Like Box to Your Website. Most websites these days are on a platform like WordPress, but even if you code with HTML in a program like Dreamweaver, it’s easy to add a Like box to your site. In WordPress, search under Plug-Ins for “Easy Facebook Like Box” for a multitude of options. Check the details, screen shots and FAQs to see which features you prefer. When you choose one, click Install, then Activate. That usually creates a Widget which can be accessed via the Appearances Then just click and drag into a sidebar or footer, fill in details like your Facebook URL and what you want to appear (Posts, faces, banner, etc.) If you are using HTML, just go to https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins to generate the code you can then add to your website.
Create an Ad Manager or Business Manager Account. If you’re ready to jump into advertising, go to https://www.facebook.com/ads/manager and start your ads manager account. There you can create custom targeted audiences, manage multiple ad campaigns that contain different ads, see your ad engagement and analytics, set up payment methods and fine tune your ad messaging, targeting and creative until you start seeing the results you need.