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Running a Facebook business account can help you reach and connect with your existing and potential customers. There are a number of benefits to create a Facebook business page, as well as some challenges.

Advantages of Facebook for business

Facebook is a powerful social media platform that offers many opportunities to businesses, including customer engagement, brand awareness and more.

Brand awareness

Having a Facebook page for your company can help you get noticed by potential customers. Facebook also lets you make more people aware of your product or service, whether they're already customers or not. 

Increasing visits to your website

You can link call to action buttons on Facebook page to your business' website, making it convenient for users to access your website. By posting links to your website, you can increase online visits.

Targeted advertising

Facebook advertising allows you to target users based on their demographics, location, interests, profile information and online activity. You can analyse the behaviour of your target audience and create ads that appeal to people who have looked at specific types of content, visited particular websites or used certain browsers or devices.

Business leads generation

Facebook audience and page fans can be a great starting point for gathering sales leads. You can use competitions and giveaways to collect email addresses and build your marketing lists.

Improved customer service and feedback 

Facebook allows two-way communication between businesses and their customers. This human connection allows you to deal directly with your customers. Reviews and comments can be a great way to gather customer feedback and find areas for improvement.

Improving your online presence

Use data from your page's Professional Dashboard to understand what content works best and plan improvements. As you notice data patterns, you can test different ads and learn more about your audience's preferences.

Disadvantages of Facebook for business

While Facebook can deliver plenty of benefits, it is important to be aware of the potential challenges.

Time and resources

Setting up and managing a Facebook page requires time . You may need a member of staff who can take on social media duties and have enough time to manage the page well and create engaging content.

Skills

The staff member who manages your Facebook page may need training to ensure they have the right skills. They should be able to plan and create content, reply to enquiries and complaints, and represent your business.

Budget 

To make the most of Facebook, you will probably need to invest in paid-for advertising. This will require its own budget.

Negative feedback

The two-way communication nature of Facebook means that unhappy customers can voice their complaints publicly. You should handle these complaints professionally as your audience will scrutinise your response. It is not advised to delete genuine negative comments. See how to deal with customer complaints. 

If you've decided that Facebook is a suitable social media platform for your business, you are ready to create a Facebook page. You should then plan how your page will be managed.

Set up a Facebook page  

To set up a page for your business, you must first have a personal Facebook account. Personal accounts and business pages offer different features. It is against Facebook's rules for businesses to use a personal account instead of a page.

To create your page, you need to add details about your business, including:

• business category
• industry
• description
• address and contact information
• website address

You can also include additional information like opening hours or your menu.

You should also add a profile picture - your logo is suitable. In addition, you can add a cover photo. This could showcase your products or current offers.

Managing your page

Once your business page is set up, it is recommended that you actively post relevant content. This will help to keep your audience interested.

It's a good idea to create a content plan. It will ensure your content is current and relevant. For example, you could relate your posts to holidays, current events like Christmas, or international sporting events like the Olympics. A useful tool is Meta Business Suite. It lets you manage your business's presence on Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram in one place.

Some best practice points to consider when managing a Facebook business page are:

• Make sure your posts are relevant to your customers and business - your page could include updates on new products/services, photos, videos and engaging questions.
• Respond to all messages - it's important to monitor and respond to your messages and comments. Keep an eye on the notifications you get and respond promptly. This involves little effort but you could benefit from satisfied customers sharing details about your services and recommending your business.
• Analyse your performance - measure how your Facebook page is performing. This will help you understand what works and what doesn't work with your audience.

Verifying your business page

Verifying your business page will let people know that it is authentic. The person  you must have admin access to your account. They will be required to add a publicly listed phone number so that Facebook can call you with a verification code.

If your page represents a celebrity, public figure, sports team, media or entertainment, you may be eligible for a blue verification badge.

Hashtags

Hashtags, a well-known feature of X, can also be used on Facebook. Placing a # in front of a word or phrase (eg #facebooktips) turns the word into a clickable link and makes it searchable. Hashtags may be a good way of gaining extra exposure for your content. However, using hashtags sparingly and only when they make sense is important.

See how the nibusinessinfo.co.uk team use a  [registration required] to engage with our audience.

Facebook offers many advertising options. They can help you reach a wider audience and meet your business goals. These goals include increasing sales, sign-ups, or awareness.   

What are the types of Facebook advertising?

Facebook provides a range of ad formats, with some of the most popular ones being:

• carousel - a creative ad format that uses multiple images, headlines, and links to showcase product benefits and content in a single unit
• collection - a group of items organised by theme, optimised for mobile use, featuring a cover image or video, followed by four images
• event - a temporary page that can host various activities, from business events to sporting events to fundraisers
• image - a post that requires uploading and attaching a photo. It should have a link and a call to action in custom text and is suitable for any type of content.
• stories - vertical full-screen ads that can be viewed unlimited times and disappear after 24 hours
• live video - a feature allowing real-time video broadcasts for increased audience engagement

Additional Facebook advertising options available include:

• instant experience - immersive and interactive full-screen screen ads
• poll - a tool to make multiple-choice questions and answers. It encourages audience interaction by letting them choose or submit their own answers.
• playable - a format to create interactive ads for your mobile app, offering a preview of the app before buying it
• lead - a customised fillable form to get users' data
• dynamic - ads that change dynamically to show the most relevant information and promotions to the right users
• messenger - an app for direct messages to push a call to action

Facebook advertising targeting

Facebook collects detailed user data. This lets advertisers target specific audiences for their marketing. Some of the targeting options include:

• location - target users based on geographic location, such as those who live near your business
• demographics - reach an audience based on their gender, age, language, recent life events, education, job and industry 
• interests - find potential customers who are likely to be interested in your offering based on their current interests such as films, sports, books, fashion and more
• behaviours - target users who are more likely to make a purchase based on their previous online behaviour
• existing customers - upload your marketing list to target your existing customers through Facebook

You should track your Facebook activity. Measure it to see if your page is doing well or needs improvements. Facebook Insights is a free tool that can help you do that. It is automatically available when you set up a Facebook business page.

Page Insights allows you to analyse metrics, including:

• the number of people who like your page
• how many people see each post (known as the reach)
• how many people interacted with each post, including clicks, likes, shares and comments
• when your audience are online
• page visits

You can use this data to decide when to post updates. It will also help you see what content interests customers. 

Insights also provides demographic information about the people who like your page. This includes:

• gender
• age
• location
• language

You can also 'watch' other pages. This can help you benchmark against your competitors.

Facebook advertising reporting

If you use paid-for advertising on Facebook, the Ads Manager tool can help you see how your ads are performing.

Using the Facebook tracking pixel can help you get detailed information on your ad performance. The pixel is placed on your site and monitors when someone from Facebook takes a desired action on your site. This action is called a "conversion." It could be a sale or a contact form completion. 

You can assign a monetary value to each conversion and compare this with your advertising spend. This helps you easily see your return on investment.