It takes about 2 minutes to create a Facebook Page – really, it’s that simple. But creating a page is only a small part of the task of having a business page – getting all the elements of the page right is most important. This post will tell you all about the various elements of a Business Page and how to get them right.
Creating a Facebook Page
When you check out Facebook’s help on how to create a page, this is what it gives:
- Go to facebook.com/pages/create
- Click to choose a Page category
- Select a more specific category from the dropdown menu and fill out the required information
- Click Get Started and follow the on-screen instructions
It sounds simple, but do you know what a Page Category is?
Facebook Pages can be created under different types:
- Local Business or Place – Shops, Restaurants, Auditoriums
- Company, Organization or Institution – Companies, Schools
- Brand or Product – A specific brand or product of any company
- Artist, Band or Public Figure – Celebrities, musicians, actors, Politicians
- Entertainment – Movies, Shows
- Cause or Community – Rally for Rivers, Save the Tiger
Pick the type that best describes your business. Once the type is selected, there is a dropdown menu that lets you be more specific about your business.
For example, if you chose Company, Organization or Institution as the Page Type, then the drop down list consists of these categories:
Pick the category that is closely aligned with your business.
Once you pick the category, the next task is to give the page a name. The page name should be the Name of your Business. If your business is called XYZ Industries Pvt Ltd., you can name the Page XYZ Industries or keep the full name with the Pvt Ltd. included. It’s totally upto the business owner to decide on that.
Once you give a name, the page has been created.
Setting the Display Picture
The Display Picture (DP) is one of the most important elements of your Facebook page. It’s important to get the size and clarity right in this since this picture will be shown on all your posts next to the name of the page. It is best practice to display the company’s logo as the DP. The DP is a square of 160 x 160 pixels but must be at least 180 x 180 pixels to upload. Rectangular images will be cropped to fit the square display area. Make sure that the uploaded image is of the best quality (high resolution) and it is clear of clutter.
The DP is what your audience sees first and it is best to make a good impression there. A messy, cluttered DP will appear even messier when it is size minimized next to your comments or posts.
Setting the Cover Image
The cover image is like a billboard on your page. It is the first big image that the audience sees when they arrive at your page. The cover picture is of the dimension 820 pixels 
by 312 pixels (H) on desktops and 640 pixels by 360 pixels (H) on smartphones. Since the image is more squarish on the mobile than on desktop, the optimum size for designing the cover image would be 820 x 462 pixels.
The cover image is only seen when the audience arrive at your page so it is of importance to first time visitors. It is best to use the cover image as the canvas to communicate what your business is all about. It could be a picture with some text, or a simple infographic about your business or just a text box. Make the cover image colourful and attractive. It is not necessary to employ graphic artists to design this image but its good to have an artistic eye while selecting colours and images.
ABOUT US
Once the images have been set, Facebook will prompt you to complete your profile by adding a Description about the business. This section includes the following details that can be filled in:
ABOUT – is a brief summary of your Page. The limit is 255 characters.
STORY – is a long form description of the business and the activities
Physical Location of the company – address and map
Operating Hours
Website id
BUSINESS INFO:
Start Date of the company (not mandatory)
Mission Statement (not mandatory)
Business Type – specified at the time of page setup
Username
The username of the page is a unique id assigned to each Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/username is the unique url for your page.
Duplicate Page names are allowed but usernames are unique to each page. When a page is created, Facebook assigns a random number sequence as the user name and only allows selection of a username after the page has a certain number of followers and some activity. This is to prevent misuse of usernames by squatters on empty pages. Once the page is eligible for a username selection, the business can pick a name that is at most 50 characters in length (shorter is preferable though). Facebook only allows the page to change its username ONCE so its important to select the right name at the very beginning.
Normally it is best practice for the username to be the name of the business itself. But in the event that the name is already taken (which is not rare to occur), the business can choose a variation of its name as the username, like adding the location name to the business name or by adding some special characters like hyphen (although this is not preferable since chances for mistyping are high).
These are the key elements of setting up a Facebook page and once these are done, the business can start posting content.
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