Facebook Pages are still relatively foreign to most of us, but the most important thing you need to remember is that your Page is in many ways, simply a personal profile. Page owners can log-into their Page and go and socialise with others, in the same way that you use your Facebook Profile with your friends; you can like, share and tag statuses and photos, publish events and upload videos.

The only difference is that you can only socialise with other pages. If you update your status, you can’t tag an individual’s Facebook Profile, you can only tag another Page. In the simplest way possible: Technician Tim is on Facebook with his own Profile as Tim Haslam-Jones, but he is also partly responsible for the Red Helmet Facebook Page. 

Equally EJ is Eve Julia Bolan on Facebook, and is also partly responsible for the Red Helmet Facebook Page. If Tim is logged in as himself on his personal Profile, and EJ is logged in as Red Helmet, EJ cannot tag Tim in a status. However, if Tim was logged into Red Helmet and EJ was logged in as Darwen Days (for example) EJ and Tim could socialise on each other’s Facebook Pages as if they were personal profiles. 

Because of this feature, it’s incredibly easy to organically build an audience of fans for your Page, and garner some extra footfall and brand awareness too. 

When you’re during ‘work time’, make sure you’re logged in as your Page. This will encourage you to socialise with other companies in the area during quiet trading periods and raise an awareness of your brand. 

Having the Page permanently running in the background on your computer also allows you to respond to any customer queries as they come in- remember- how fast and accurately you answer those questions says a lot about your customer service as a brand. 

Because public Pages don’t adhere to Friend Requests, your Page can like another Page without having to wait for someone to allow the relationship, like you would with a personal Profile. This means that you can start cultivating relationship with other companies straight away. 

According to the routine of your working day, list the companies you deal with on a regular basis- From suppliers and buyers to neighbouring local companies- Liking their Page as your Page can be the start of a mutually beneficial social media relationship.

Log into your Facebook Profile as normal and then click the cog icon in the top right hand corner of the screen. 

Once you have clicked your Page, Facebook will automatically take you to the there, where the first thing you will see is the Admin Panel about the Page, and below, the actual Page itself. 

You can either click ‘Hide’ (in the top right hand side of your Page’s Admin Panel, or simply scroll down to see how your Page currently appears to the public. 

If you keep yourself logged into your Facebook Page for the duration of your working day, you can quickly respond to customer queries and when there’s a quiet moment, go and socialise with other Pages. 

Updating your Status 

When you update your Facebook Page status- it’s important to show a level of consideration for your fans before you publish- remember, you’re representing your brand online, so it’s important that you publish good quality media that encourages people to like your Page and share your content. 

• Trivial, fun questions; 

• Celebrity Birthdays; 

• Public Holidays; 

• ‘Safe’ jokes; 

• ‘Fill in the blank’ questions.

• Comments about political or religious beliefs; 

• Any bad language; 

• Adult, homophobic or racist jokes; 

• Any potentially libellous statements; 

• Personal life details. 

Yay 

• Daily routines or product manufacture, etc; 

• Specifically set-up and properly produced content; 

• Funny ‘safe’ videos.

• Mobile phone videos (often bad quality); 

• YouTube videos with swearing, violence, porn, homophobic or racist overtones; 

• Funny ‘adult’ videos. 

• Staff members; 

• Customers (always ask permission first); 

• Products; 

• Images which depict your services; 

• Funny ‘safe’ jokes.

• Badly taken photographs (red-eye, eyes closed, blurred, badly framed, etc.); 

• Funny ‘adult’ jokes. 

People, as well as other Pages, can send you direct messages to your Page. These are not public and when you respond to them, the response will come from your Page, and not from your personal Profile. This is to help promote safety, allowing people to promote their businesses without fans potentially finding out the owners’ personal details. 

At least once a day during your working week- set five minutes aside to browse Facebook as your Page and add like other Pages related to your own. For example, you could search for Pages that belong to: 

• The Local Council; 

• Your suppliers; 

• Local businesses, companies and clubs; 

• Pages that belong to your friends and relatives; 

• The local press; 

• The local constabulary. 

By adding liking all of these Pages suggested, you are on the way to creating an awareness of your brand, and by ‘socialising’ with other Pages you can increase your footfall as well as traffic to your Page. For every Page that likes your Page, be sure to like them back, and tag them in a status update, thanking them for the like. This is common courtesy and lets the new followers know that you’ve seen and appreciate their interaction. 

There are two ways to encourage your friends to like your Facebook Page, and we suggest that you try both every month or so. This is enough to cover all bases, so to speak, and ensures that you don’t swamp people’s Facebook feeds with your pleas to like your Page. 

If you log-into Facebook as your Page, go to your Admin Panel and in the bottom right hand corner is the Invite Friends window. In it will be a list of people who are on your Friends List. Click ‘See All’ and a window listing all of your friends will open up. 

In the top left of this window is a drop-down menu, which is probably saying ‘Recent Interactions’. Pull it down and choose the option ‘Search All Friends’ and tick the box next to everyone who you’d like to invite your Page. 

This means that they’ll receive a notification that says ‘[You] have invited [them] to like [Your Page], when they next log-in. Not everybody will follow the link on that notification and visit your Page to like it, so it’s worth doing the second method below. 

The second method for encouraging those on your Friends List to like your Page is to post a link to your Page, either just the address or a status update. This is in some ways a better way of raising an awareness of your Page, as the link will stay on your profile until your decide to update it, so it won’t disappear with one click like a notification would. 

If you want to share a simple link to the Facebook Page, simply visit your Page and highlight the text in the address bar (right at the top of your browser). Right click the text and select ‘Copy’ and then visit your own Facebook Profile. Right click your status bar and click ‘Paste’ and Facebook will recognise the link and provide the relevant text and image below. 

Then all you have to do is delete the address that you just pasted (don’t worry, this will not delete the link that Facebook has attached to the status) and write something along the lines of: ‘I’ve got a Facebook Page now! Please click on the link below and give it a like! Cheers :D’. 

If you want to share a status that you have written as your Page, visit your Page but ensure that you are logged in as yourself and not the Page. Go to the status you would like to share on your personal Profile, and click ‘Share’ underneath the status update. The drop-down menu will then allow you to post this status update to your Personal Profile- don’t forget to write some text to go with the link to encourage your friends to click on it.

The busiest periods on Facebook are: 

7-9am: This is when people are commuting, and more often or not are checking their phones whilst they sit in traffic and or wait for public transport- and an ideal time to post your content.

12-2pm: This is when many people are on their lunch breaks, and thus will be checking their phones whilst they eat. This is the best time to post your most shareable content.

5-10pm: This is when many people are commuting, but also when others are eating their dinner and thus checking their phones. This is a good time to commentate on subjects related to your brand in relation to what’s currently on TV (don’t forget to use the relevant hash tag), what’s on the radio, or what music you’re listening to.