Setting Up Your Facebook Page

I read a study recently that said people spend an average of 40 minutes per day on Facebook. If you’ve put your stake in the ground and refuse to participate, you might want to rethink that decision. The advantages of having a Facebook Page are numerous.

Facebook is easily the best method of advertising on the market. Unlike radio or tv ads, you can actually track how each ad is preforming and who sees your ad. You’re no longer wasting money by blanketing your audience with advertising. If you want to have an ad show up for golfers who are over 50 years of age, make more than $250,000 and live within a 5 mile radius of your golf course, then you can set those parameters.

Once you get started, it’s pretty addicting.

In case you didn’t notice, I like Facebook. Its ability to assist your business in marketing is really unparalleled. The best part is that is doesn’t even really matter how many fans you have on your business page in order to take advantage of the marketing efforts. You just need to have a business page.

It’s pretty easy to get set up, but I’ll go ahead and walk you through it. If you’re in the 40+ age group, then it’s highly likely you have an aversion to tackling social media marketing. I’m not trying to pick on you, I fall into that category myself. That is why I know my peers, husband, brother and my dad prefer to stay as far away from social media as possible.

All you need to do is stand in line at the grocery store to realize that all of the generations younger than 40 spend the five minutes it takes to check out your groceries scrolling on their phone. Wouldn’t it be great if your golf course was showing its smiling face in that five minute scroll time?

The Set Up

To get started creating a Business Fan Page, you need to have a Facebook account. I know. I know. You don’t need to use it for anything other than the fan page. No one needs to even know that you caved and signed up. It’s just how Facebook tracks its users. Make sure you fill it out correctly. They have a special way of tracking down counterfeits.

Once you have your personal Facebook page, you’re going to want to click on the top left hand side of the screen underneath your name. That will open a box where it will say Create Page.

Pages vs. Groups

Let’s cover the difference between a Page and Group. A page is for marketing purposes. It is kind of like a Facebook account for your business. You can add events, share photos, promotions, and more on your Business Fan Page. One of the most important parts of having a Page (not using your own personal account) is the ability to advertise your business using the Facebook Tracking Pixel. For more information on how to get to your tracking pixel, visit this post.

The Facebook Pixel is a piece of code that is embedded on your website and allows you to target market visitors of your website. You can only get this piece of code with a Page.

A Group is meant more for direct interaction with your guests. You can set groups settings to be public or private. When they are set to private, then you can have control over who is allowed within your group. Groups might be used for your Leagues, Lesson groups, or smaller segments of your golf course that would benefit from interaction. A Group doesn’t have the pixel, so you can’t track movement with only a group page.

Create a Page

After you’re selected Create a Page, you’ll want to select local business as your category.

Then you’ll need to select which type of business, so you’ll once again choose Local Business.

Now, you need to fill out your golf course’s information.

You can select your page to fall under up to three categories. You might select golf course, driving range, banquet center. There are many options available, so pick the top three for your business.

You’ll also want to fill out a short paragraph explaining your golf course. Keep it light and simple. No rules! You want to attract golfers, not repel them. You’ll also want to fill out your golf course’s website address, then select that you’re a real business.

If you don’t know this information, you can always come back to this page later under the Profile settings.

Profile Picture

Once you select Save Info, you’ll want to choose a profile picture. It makes sense for this picture to be some sort of picture of your logo. Your profile picture is what your golfers will see in their newsfeed, so it’s nice for it to be something that is distinguishable to your golf course.

Now that you’ve selected your profile picture, you’ll want to add your page to your favorites. This just makes it easy to get to from your own Personal Page. Your favorites shows up on the left hand side of your personal page, so this makes it easy for you to access. This is probably more important for a group vs. a page, but I always put it in my favorites for ease of locating later.

It’s important to claim your page. In a future post, I’ll talk about verifying your page. Facebook wants to know that you’re a real business. It treats verified pages with more value in your advertising because it can tell you aren’t a fraud.

The final section is filling out your preferred audience. This section is primarily used to help Facebook with its algorithms. It will do some amount of free advertising for you by suggesting your page to people with these interests. This will also be a good starting place for your Facebook advertising campaigns.

Final Step

You have filled out all of the nuts and bolts of your Facebook Page, so now it is time to get your page looking good!

There are several steps you might want to check out from this page. You can select to add a different call to action button. In the area where it says Add a Button, you can select from a variety of buttons. You’ll want to choose either the Call Me button where you can put in your phone number or you might want to have the call to action button be a link to visit your website.

You will also want to add a Cover image that goes along the top of your Facebook Page. This is an image that I would recommend changing frequently. I use a service called Canva that has many great free options for a pre-designed Facebook Cover photo. You can have them designed for specials events, promotions, or even just by the season. It simply adds some interest to your Facebook Page.