Facebook isn’t called the largest social platform for nothing. In fact, its capabilities extend far beyond social networking. Yes, it’s a great place to stay in touch with your friends and former classmates, find inspiration, and receive insights on all things current – like the latest Web trends or breaking news updates. But this alone isn’t what attracts over two billion monthly active users. On Facebook, you can practically do anything you want, like shop in the Marketplace, discover events happening in your city, seek recommendations in a group about any product, service, or interest, browse your favorite business’s Facebook page, you can also use it for business and advertising (Facebook retargeting being just one example of this) – we could go on.
The first step to opening up this door of business opportunities is to create a free website. Then, you can link it on your Facebook page. Only after you have your own, you are able to take advantage of the many cool features available on the platform.
Here's our guide to creating an impressive Facebook account:
01. Sign up to Facebook
Facebook marketing encompasses many different elements, including creating a Facebook business page, Facebook advertising, growing and engaging with communities, and more. So, if you haven’t yet, here are the eight steps you need to take in order to create your own personal Facebook account:
Go to Facebook.com.
Fill in your personal details: your full name, email address, and password. Note that you’ll only use the last two for future identifications.
Confirm your identity via email.
You’re all set! Now you can start adding friends. Facebook will suggest people you might know based on your email address. You can also add friends based on their email addresses or type their names into your search bar later on.
02. Express yourself with images
Images are a big part of social networking. They allow friends to find each other easier among the 930,528,509 other Joe Smith’s profiles out there. Plus, it gives you the opportunity to truly express yourself. If there are just two images you should focus on, these are them:
Upload a profile picture: Your profile photo is the image associated with your account. It’s now circular shaped, and smaller than the cover photo (mentioned below). All of your friends (and potentially the public, if you allow it) will see this image. So, make sure to choose one that clearly identifies you and your personality.
Add a cover photo: This is a large landscape image that’s visible at the top of your profile. It spans across the header of your profile page, which means it’s eye catching to your page visitors. Therefore, it should be something you want people to see, from a beautiful landscape photo or quote to pictures with your family and friends. But really, it’s completely up to you what goes here, as long as you keep it appropriate.
03. Fill out your profile information
Beyond photos, this is how you will describe yourself in words and through connections. Here you’ll want to include everything from where you work and where you went to school to places you’ve lived, personal interests, professional skills, and more. This way you’ll be able to find associations with other Facebook users and discover more people that you know on the platform based on your mutual items. In addition to these options, you can also include a short bio describing a little about yourself to allow your Facebook friends to get to know you even better.
Pro tip: Your bio is a great place to expose users to your website, social media channels and more. With a link in bio tool like Hopp by Wixx you can direct users towards all of your online assets from one designated URL.
04. Control your privacy settings
You have control over who sees almost every piece of information on Facebook. That is, by making it public or private. This means everything from a photo of you, an update that you share, your birthday, or what mobile phone apps are connected to your account. It’s possible for all of these that you can choose whether you want it be visible to just yourself, just your friends, or the general public (which includes everyone on and off of Facebook). There are many aspects that you can control within Facebook’s settings to get more specific than just ‘private’ or ‘public,’ such as groups, specific friends, and people in a certain location.
05. Like and follow your favorite business pages
As Facebook is the place to know what’s happening in the world, the only task required by you is to bring it within arm’s reach. You can do so by liking and following businesses that you admire or ones that share content that entertains, inspires, or educates you. Even better, why not follow accounts that do all three of those things? For example, on Wix’s Facebook page you will find helpful articles that are intended to help small businesses, marketers, and website owners thrive. On top of this, we share videos that spotlight stunning Wix users’ creations, engaging contests, celebratory posts about our favorite Internet holidays, sporting events, and other viral and entertaining content. We suggest finding and following accounts that excite you in order to make the most out of your Facebook browsing experience.
06. Customize your News Feed
Your News Feed is the place where you can share your own posts as well as view your friends’ posts and other interesting content and events. The best part about this space is that you can completely control your experience. Within your ‘News Feed Preferences’ there are many customizable settings. These include very interesting Facebook features, such as prioritizing who you see first amongst the mass of publications and pages you might have subscribed too. Want to give it a try? Go back to the Wix’s Facebook page, click on ‘Follow’ near the cover photo, and then hover over the ‘Following’ or ‘Liked’ button, and select ‘See First’. Other interesting tools you’ll find in the ‘News Feed Preferences’ are the possibility to discover new pages that match your interests, and reconnect with people and groups that you’ve unfollowed. The point is to make sure that you never get bored of your News Feed, as you can curate it just the way you like it.
07. Start posting and engaging
You can start right away by sharing anything from interesting articles to discussions to photos. Facebook offers so many opportunities for content that it could make your head spin. A few of these are posts in groups you join, real time updates in the form of live videos or additions to your Facebook Stories, chat or video call friends via Messenger, create and join events happening in your area, and so much more. You can also interact with your friends and favorite business’ pages too. This is a place to share your voice and opinion, as well as receive answers. Even if your question is customer support related, Facebook is a gateway for that too. Many businesses today use Messenger as a form customer service to provide assistance conveniently to their clients. Basically, the opportunities to interact with the world via Facebook amount to more than anywhere else, both virtually and physically.
If you're looking to get started with Facebook advertising, resources on Facebook pixel ads and others can help.