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Facebook has two types of pages. The first is Facebook Pages, which allow public figures, businesses, or brands a space to share information, interact with their fans and create an interactive forum on Facebook. This can be highly useful as means of marketing for small businesses. The other, Groups, focus less on a person, brand or business and more on a shared interest. Unlike Pages, Groups have a 5000-member limit. We recommend Groups for organizations and bands.  Pages can tie in with your account or brand, while Groups stand alone. Facebook Pages tend to work better for businesses while Groups do well for non-profits, interests and causes.

While Pages would seem to be the better option for most businesses, they’re really geared toward well-known brands. In this article, We are going to explain how a small or one-person business can create an effective Facebook Page.

Setting Up Your Page

If you’re a one-person or small business, rather than creating Facebook pages for your name, consider setting up a Facebook page for the company, product or service name and add keywords to it. People may be more likely to subscrbe to your Page (become a “fan”) when they see the topic that follows the company name. For example, I’m a one-person business, so instead of creating our Page using my name, we used our official company name of “http://www.facebook.com/ThinkGeeks4u” we then expanded it to show “Think Geeks services, showcase our work and provide helpful articles related to our business model and services” Using this approach shows what kind of valuable information people will get if they subscribe to our Page. Not all of us have well-known brands like Motorola, NewEgg, Twitter or BestBuy.

Creating a new Facebook page requires picking a category for your Page. There are three main choices: “Local,” “Brand, Product or Organization” or “Artist, Band or Public Figure.” For our Page, We decided that “Local” was out, as we service more than a local market. Our business does not fit into the categories of "Artist, Band, or Public Figure". However, we decided to go with "Brand, Product or Organization" as it has "Communications" and "Professional Service" subcategories, which fit our business model. Best practice is to view all the subcategories and see where your one-person or small business fits best.

Before Opening for Business

Prior to broadcasting that your Facebook Page is open for business, add some valuable content so people will see the benefits of subscribing:

• Share tips on how to do things faster or more effectively with your product or service.
• Post how-to videos or screencasts.
• Announce free upcoming events or webinars.
• Mention if you or someone from your company will be attendin an event for a potential meet up.
• Import your blog entries.

If you’re not ready for a page or want to become familiar with Facebook Pages, subscribe to some other pages and visit them regularly. See which ones work, and what makes them better than those that don’t work well. As long as you don’t come across as overly promotional, you’ll do fine. The key is to keep a balance between promotion of your Business and providing informaiton that is useful to the subscriber.

More Resources

How To Create A Business Account On Facebook Without A Personal One

How to Setup A Facebook Page For Your Business

Setup Your Vanity Facebook URL/LINK

Friends help Friends: Get more than 100 fans for your Facebook Fan page