Learn how you can use Facebook for your small business.

1. Facebook for Small
Business
Jonathan F. Williams

2. Facebook for Small Business
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Introduction
If you’re running a small business, especially a location-based small business, you need to use Facebook.
Facebook is the elephant in the room. It is the largest social media platform, and it is the platform that likely spans
through all generations. Even if somebody in a younger generation doesn't necessarily use Facebook as much, yet
they will probably have a pro le just to have one. All this to say that while Facebook is trending older, you should
still have a Facebook account for your small business, especially since you will likely need to have a presence.
Facebook wants you and your business and pretty much anybody who uses it to stay on their platform. They are
building an ecosystem where you can almost do anything within Facebook. It's like a mini internet in and of itself.
You can search for information on Facebook, you can connect with people, you can sell things, you can donate to
causes, everything can be located on Facebook. Therefore, if you don't have a presence on Facebook, you will miss
out on a portion of traf c, because people who use Facebook use it for almost everything.
In this document, we’re going to give you 11 things that you, as a small business, need to do on Facebook.
1) Set up a Facebook page.
So this is not just creating a Facebook page and having nothing on it. You need to fully set up and ll out the
information on your Facebook page to make sure it is completely eshed out.
Make sure you go back and look at our whitepaper on how you need to set up a Facebook for your business. Use that
as an introductory guide to get your page set up. Make sure your page has all your business information, location,
phone number, and everything else set up and it is complete.
Also, don't forget to invest in having a professional pro le picture and cover photo at the top. Especially make sure
that your pro le image will be easily recognizable to your audience. My go-to recommendation would be to make
sure your logo is your pro le image so that if someone tries to type in your business name and several other results
show up, they will notice your logo and go to your page immediately.
Some people like to be creative and have a picture of their building or their product or something else in that image.
But you have to remember, most people will likely look you up on their phones or see your posts in their feeds on
their phones. With such a small image, most people won't be able to see the details when searching for you.
Therefore, something that's easily recognizable and simple, like your logo, will be your best bet.

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2) Be prepared to spend advertising
dollars.
So even though Facebook has a lot of people out there looking for stuff, to make sure that you are getting out there
in front of the people you want, you will want to make sure you have an advertising budget. Now the great news is, is
that this could be a couple hundred dollar budget. You just have to be smart in how you put that money to work.
Unlike a TV ad or radio ad, which goes out to the masses and can't be controlled as to exactly who you hit, Facebook
allows you to target exactly who you're hoping to reach.
3) Consider creating a Facebook Group.
One thing you have to keep in mind is that Facebook is continually changing their algorithm and how the platform is
run. This might seem like they're moving the proverbial goal line, and in some cases, they are because it may be a
play for them to get more advertising revenue in the door by limiting the organic reach of a business page.
But you also have to see the ip side. Facebook is a platform that won't work unless people go on it, and people like
it. Therefore, to keep people coming back, Facebook keeps having to put the consumer or the user of Facebook as
the primary focus to ensure that people are coming to the platform. This ensures that you as an advertiser, or as a
business, even have an audience there to look at
So, in this evolution, Facebook pages don’t see the organic reach and don’t drive a lot of traf c to your website or
your product. However, Facebook Groups are currently receiving a lot more engagement. This is for many reasons,
including the fact that Facebook has active noti cations every time new topics and new posts go up in Facebook
groups. Therefore, many businesses are building out Facebook groups that their customers can be involved in. This
can be a better way to connect with your customers because they get more organic reach. With that being said,
when you build the group, you need to develop it over a community that will have a shared identity. This could be
around a product, or this could be around a subject that your business could be part of.
What I mean by this is that your Facebook Group needs to provide a lot of value to people and to connect people
with like interests. If your business were to step back and not post anything in it, the group would be self-regulating
and self-sustaining and could go on on its own because they have topics relevant to them to talk about. You might
have created the group and brought people together, but the group needs to foster genuine business-to-consumer
(B2C) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) conversations.

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Well, I have seen real estate agents build groups for real estate investors in their community. They create a Facebook
group for local real estate investors, and the real estate agent gets a potential group of people willing to buy his
properties or use him to nd properties for them.
But the group gets a local community of investors and like-minded people who can discuss topics, discuss issues,
and solve problems for each other. Now, the real estate agent needs to make sure they manage that and cultivate it
and keep it going. But the group should be self-sustaining.
4) Make sure you are utilizing a content
calendar.
Check out our white paper on creating a marketing content calendar for your business. You need to make sure for
your Facebook page, and if you have a Facebook group, that you are posting consistently, planned on-message posts.
The best way to do this is to make sure you have that content calendar that you can utilize to put together the
thoughts and ideas relevant to your brand and your business’s ideal client.
5) Make sure all the low-hanging fruit like
your page.
Make sure to invite all the “low hanging fruit” in your life to like your business’s page. One cool thing about
Facebook is that when you start a page, you can invite all your friends, families, and connections on Facebook to like
that page. Now, will everyone you invite like your page? Most likely not. However, there will be many people who
will like that page and give you that nice little instant boost of likes on your page that will in turn show more
credibility to your potential audience.
If you're a business with more than one employee, either multiple owners or a lot of staff, have them invite their
friends and family to like the page if they feel comfortable.
So what does this mean in a practical sense?

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Often, people don't like to respond or engage with people who comment on their Facebook page or their social
media pages in general. But one thing you need to remember is that social media is meant to be social. And to do
this, you have to engage and reply to comments on your pages. So, make sure you have time set aside so that you can
respond to people that are commenting on your posts, sending new messages to your page, or are having discussions
in your groups. Also, make sure if someone has a negative comment you are talking with them, addressing it and
taking it of ine, if needed, to make sure that you are handling whatever their issues are.
7) Be consistent.
As with almost anything in life, there's no silver bullet. There's no easy thing that's going to come out of nowhere and
make running your business simple and immediately go right the rst time or immediately “go viral.” If that does
happen, that's the exception, not the rule.
So what you need to do is to make sure that you're consistently posting things, consistently interacting with people,
and consistently following your plan to make sure you grow your Facebook page as a business. Don't expect results
overnight. And don't expect this to be the only thing that will drive business. It is one more tool in your tool chest
that can help you drive more business to your company.
8) Have realistic goals.
Remember why you have the page and what you want to get out of it. Make sure you go into having a Facebook page
with this in mind before you start. Sometimes you just need a Facebook page to have a presence on the platform so
that if someone wants to look for you, they can nd your information, get a link to your website and go and get more
information there. Other times, Facebook may very well be the primary driver of traf c and business to your site. It
all depends on what type of business you have and what you want to do with it and what's going to be realistic with
that page for your business.
To combine this with the previous point, don't set unrealistic goals which causes you to not achieve them, which in
turn then stops you from being consistent. In your plan, set realistic goals that will reinforce your consistency and
ultimately help you build upon them.
6) Respond to comments, especially
negative comments.

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And by sharing other pages' content, you will see that it increases engagement with your page’s content. One thing to
make sure you do when you share any content is to make sure it is relevant. If you have that content calendar, make
sure it would t in that content calendar and isn't something off-topic.
Overall, sharing will offer you quick wins with content you didn't necessarily have to create yourself.
10) Make sure your page name is nal
before you reach 100 likes on your page.
Facebook has rules and regulations that, if you get a certain number of likes on your Facebook page, you can no
longer change your page name without going through an approval process. This only impacts your public page name
- you should still be able to change the username, or the handle (i.e., the name that comes after
“Facebook.com/[YOUR NAME]”) after you hit 100 likes, but you will not be changed the page name.
We recommend that you make sure when you're creating a page, you have the nal name at the very beginning, as
well as the username you want at the very beginning. Don't plan on changing it later because you could very well
reach more than 100 likes quickly, especially if you’re inviting people to like your page. Then you would have to go
through a long process of trying to get approval to have it changed. Or someone could even take your username if
you don't grab it at the beginning.
11) Remember, you don’t control
Facebook.
Overall, remember that you do not own or control Facebook. In general, you might be able to manage your
Facebook page. But Facebook is continually changing how its platform operates, looks, and anything in between.
Facebook's algorithm does bene t when you share relevant content from other pages on your Facebook page. This
could be a related news story, a video, a piece of content from one of your followers, or something else. If someone
shares a review or some relevant information about your product, this is great to share on your page. It shows that
you are engaged and have other interests that people can like and comment on.
9) Share content from other pages.

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Just as you should always diversify your investments, make sure you are diversifying your business funnels. Don’t let
any one tool become a crux that, if changed or removed, would destroy your business overnight.
So whatever you do, Facebook should be one of the tools in your tool chest but don't ever rely on just one platform
or one system to be your end all, be all. It should be one thing that helps you and if it is the best at helping your
business, great. But know that there could always be a point down the road when things change, the algorithm
changes, Facebook changes their rules or something else that could potentially force you to nd a different method
of creating business and bene ts for your company.