Next come a number of choices for the way the page is classified, if you’re running a local business, like many of the small retailers and other companies that we represent then the first choice is the one for you. Businesses that deal with a wider client base might prefer to choose the “brand, product or organisation” choice and public figures and celebrities would choose the third choice.

Having completed the form, which is pretty self-explanatory the next stage is to create a Facebook account if you don’t already have one, this involves filling in your email address and receiving a confirmation email. Click on the link in the confirmation email and you’ll be taken to your brand new company Facebook page, which won’t look very impressive to start with, but it’s a start!!

Mention Facebook to most small businesses and they immediately think of teenagers chatting to each other and posting photos of drunken nights out, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is where it’s at and for the most part you’re probably right, but things are changing quickly. With any new technology and publishing platform on the internet it’s often better for small businesses to wait until the popularity has reached a tipping point before jumping in and getting involved. I would say that both Twitter and Facebook have reached that point in the U.S.A and are about to do so in the UK and Europe.

Right now Facebook has about 300 million users and a 60% share of the social networking market. Despite the hype behind Twitter, Facebook has around 30 times as many users, the downside is that it’s a much bigger commitment in terms of setup and administration and needs to be seen as a different way of reaching your audience in the same way that newspaper advertising and email marketing require different approaches.

Facebook has huge potential for publishing your content in many different formats depending on how you want to reach your clients and potential clients, it also has a whole host of ways to interact, create communities and enter into dialogue with a large audience. Twitter on the other hand has 140 characters.

Increasing brand awareness is another benefit of having a company Facebook page as it is very quickly indexed by Google and will help your name to come up quickly in searches.

Understanding Facebook for business.

Facebook for businesses is a little different to the personal Facebook profiles that you may be used to seeing, as they don’t let businesses set up personal profiles.  Facebook has an option called “pages” and this is where you are able to publish content for your business and promote yourself to the world. On Facebook pages you build a community of “fans” as opposed to “friends”. This where you can start your journey into the world of facebook and social networking for business.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be building a Facebook Page for Recorded Devilery and hopefully publishing articles about the process here, so if you’d like to follow along and join in, please feel welcome.