There’s no denying that having a presence on social media benefits your business. It can seem redundant to post the same content to all the social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Google+, but you should keep at it in order to reach the greatest number of potential clients. Think of it like a tie-dye T-shirt, where the colors represent all the different ways you’re trying to connect with people. People love looking at tie-dye! A successful Facebook page is the hot pink of the mix.

Using your Facebook account as the administrator of your Facebook page

You need to already have a Facebook account in order to create a page. That means logging in. Although your personal account is connected to the page, it won’t be visible. It will, however, be the linked administrator account later on if you need to connect your Facebook page to, say, Twitter or WordPress. I recommend just using your personal account instead of creating an entirely different one. That way you won’t have to log in and out all the time.

Create the page

To create the page from your personal account, guide your cursor to the upside-down arrow in the top right of the page. It’s a dark little arrow so you might have to squint. Click it, then click “Create Page.”

First you have to choose the kind of page. Is your business a company, brand, entertainment website? Choose the most relevant one and fill in the information you’re prompted for. Click “Get Started.”

There will be four more steps. You can change stuff later on.

About: This information will show up in search engines. This is the meaty little description that has the power to convince someone to click on the link. Make it juicy. Below this, you’ll give your website address. Finally, you get to choose a unique address for your Facebook page. If your company is a restaurant called “Greasy Spoon of Boston,” your unique address here should be “GreasySpoonOfBoston.” Mmm.

Profile Picture: This is the small picture that will appear in the bottom left of the page’s header. If you have a company logo, this is where it to slap it on. Make sure the image you upload is square, with good resolution. This is the avatar beside all your posts.

Add to favorites: Adding the page to your favorites makes it easily accessible from your personal account.

Reach more people: This is where you can create a Facebook ad for your page. It’s great if you want to get to the top of news feeds. Skip this for now.

That’s it—you’ve created your page!

The uber-important cover photo

The cover photo is the most important visual aspect of the page. Facebook changes the requirements from now and again, but right now the cover photo needs to be 851px wide by 315px tall. Here are some things to take into account:

• Your cover photo should give a good idea of your business
• You should have taken the photo or created the image with high resolution, meaning at least 300dpi
• The profile picture cuts off the bottom left section of the cover photo
• The title of your page is to the right of the profile picture in white text, so the cover photo should not have qualities that harm visibility of this

The feel of your cover photo should correlate with the content you intend to post. Is your page for a web comic? Put your characters in there, and make it funny. Are you a hair salon? Get a sweet angle of a client’s ‘do. If you want, you can add text to your image, like a catch phrase or the page title again.

See the tabs at the top of your Facebook page? Click ‘Settings’

On the left you see a bunch of categories to edit. Here are the essentials.

General: Here you can set your preferences including privacy settings, restrictions, profanity filter and more.

Page Info: You’ve filled out most of the info, but you still have to write a ‘Long Description.’

Apps: Your page can play host to any number of apps. This will require you to do some research to find out which are best suited for your page. Apps can greatly increase your readers’ engagement. One of the first steps, however, is to get the Twitter app by searching in Facebook for ‘Twitter for page.’ The Giveaway app is pretty sweet, as are the Email SignUp and Top Fans apps.

The most important thing is YOUR activity

Are you wondering why there aren’t more likes on your page? First, it takes a little while. You should definitely advertise your new Facebook page through other channels, and send notifications out to your email contacts. If you can hit 100 likes, you get access to Facebook Insights, which allows you to measure how well your page is doing.

But in order to make your page fabulous, YOU have to be the most active one. Post anything related to your business. Recommend other pages or websites, share photos, videos, and daily thoughts. Don’t stray too far from the purpose of the page, but make it more than what a reader would expect—that’s the key to a successful Facebook page.