How to Start & Grow a Business on Facebook

You are in the right place with the social media buzz we have seen over the past decade or so. The future of social of Facebook is hard to predict but one thing is clear. It remains one of the best places to sell your products online. But, how do you build a profitable business on Facebook? Have you ever typed sell Facebook pages on your browser to find out how people sell their products online? To answer this, we have compiled a simple guide to help you set the ball rolling. Let’s get started, shall we?

#1: Create Your Facebook Business Store

For starters, you will need to create a Facebook business store. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to turn your personal account into a page regardless of the number of friends you have.  Creating a business page on Facebook is quite simple.

Let’s go through how to setup your Facebook business page:

Step 1:  Enter Your Business Info

• Click on the following link to get started https://www.facebook.com/pages/creation/ or better even, click on the drop-down on the upper right section of your Facebook dashboard then click on “Create Page”
• Select “Business or Brand” from the two options you are given on the page.
• Fill out the details required that is, things like your business page name, the business niche, your business address, your contact info

Step 2: Add Your Business Photos

The next step is to add some photos which are more or less the face of your business on Facebook. This includes a business logo and the cover photo which should ideally be 170 x 170 pixels and 820 x 462 pixels in dimensions respectively.

Tips:

• Square images tend to look better than rounded options particularly along with posts and Facebook ads
• You don’t have to be a pro to create amazing images. You can use free photo editing tools like Canva to create and edit your images but if you want professional grade results then you will have to hire a designer for the job
• You can choose to use a cover video or slideshow in place of a cover image if you want to be a bit creative on your outlook.

Step 3: Complete & Customize Your Page Business Page

Facebook’s page setup wizard will guide you to fill the important details you need to complete setting up the business page. You could also click on “Settings” and “Page Info” to fill out details like your business location, the category, the hours of operation and much more. They will appear on the about section of your page and you can always add as much info as you can.

You can even customize the page further by adding tabs. If you don’t know what page tabs are for then they are simply used to split different parts of the business page like photos, posts, reviews, etc.

Step 4: Add collaborators to your Business Page

If you will be running the business page along with a team of other members, you will certainly need to split the roles and assign privileges depending on the user roles.

There are a number of roles you can assign to your team members:

• Admin – Just like you, an admin is the super user and has a complete read and write rights on the page
• Editor – Can make changes on the page. He or she can also send messages, create posts and ads, review insights, view posts by admin etc.
• Moderator – Can check and handle comments to the business, send out messages, see admin posts, create ads, and view insights.
• Advertiser – Can create Facebook ads, see what admins posts, and review insights.
• Analyst – Can see admin posts and look at the insights.

To assign these roles, go to settings and click on the “Page Roles” section. Key in the Facebook name or the associated email of the person you wish to assign the role. Proceed to assign the desired role.

Step 5: You are ready!

Once you have finished setting up your setup, you are ready to start selling on the Facebook store!

#2: Extend Facebook Business to an Ecommerce Store

You can use Facebook as the primary shop for your business but this will only work if you don’t handle lots of products. It’s definitely a great place when starting out but once you are up and running, you will need to scale up the tech stack as well. You don’t want to spend a lot of time managing tons of orders and having to add products to your Facebook store manually, right? Thankfully, there is a nice solution to this.

You could setup an ecommerce store then link it to your Facebook business store. The beauty is that top ecommerce solutions like Shopify integrate seamlessly to Facebook’s shop. With Shopify’s Facebook Store app installed, for example, you will get a tab added to your page with the products you want to sell via Facebook.

There are a number of advantages that come with linking your Facebook store to an ecommerce platform. Think of as a having a proper backend powering up your site and your FB store plus you can sell your products through other channels on the web.

#3: Grow Your Business

It isn’t enough to setup a store via Facebook or an ecommerce platform. You will need to do some work to grow it if you are to get the right conversion rates. To grow your business you need to a bit of marketing or rather, “the 4Ps of marketing” i.e. Product, Price, Place & Promotion.

Here are a few tips to growth hack your Facebook business:

• Set the right price for your products
• Craft marketing and communication strategies to market your business and products. This comes in the form of clever digital ad campaigns, sales promotions, giving out special offers on products, using PR strategies among others.
• Work on a product delivery approach that works for both you and the consumer

Wrap Up:

That’s pretty much the quickest way to start working towards a profitable business on Facebook. Remember, it is a competitive business world. So once your store is up and running, it is time to turn your attention to marketing your brand and products.