How to Create A Facebook Page

This is one reason why Facebook Pages have a major edge over Facebook Groups: you get a full statistical view of what's going on. The screenshot above shows a daily-updated chart of your Pages' activities...

By clicking the "Insights" hyperlink to your Page name, you'll get a view of your visitors and their demographics, along with a chart showing its growth rate. Once again, if you're creating Pages for marketing purposes, this is invaluable data that will help your campaign - especially if you're looking to do a little target marketing with Facebook Ads.

For some reason, Facebook Pages are not really documented or advertised in an easy-to-find spot on Facebook's site. You'll have to log in to your Facebook account and visit the Create A Facebook Page tool.

Note that there are only a few fields - yet, they are extremely important!

1. Choose your "category," which determines where your page will be seen in Facebook's directory.
   
   

   Note: Be sure that you are absolutely happy with the category you've chosen. You're not alone if you think that the category choices for Facebook Pages are awful. Once you make a decision on a category, you can never go back!



2. Next, pick the "Name" for your page -- and be extremely careful as it is PERMANENT, and will be seen within the actual URL of your Facebook Page (for all of you SEO professionals, you'll immediately see the importance of this).


3. Fill in the Captcha box and you're done. It really is that quick and simple. However, the customization hasn't even begun!

(Above: You should be greeted with this screen.)

Your basic Facebook knowledge is all you need to get through the rest of the customization process. Upload a main image identifying what your Facebook Page is about...add a feed (such as the RSS directly off of the site you're advertising!)...fill in the "Info" box with pure content to appease search engines, and you know the rest!

Remember, all of the "Fans" who "Fan" your Facebook Page can be emailed as a single group, making this an invaluable way to keep in touch with everyone.

On 12:01 A.M., June 13, 2009 - Facebook opened up the option of allowing users to name their Facebook Pages with a vanity URL, in the same fashion of how they were allowed to create a username (Facebook.com/username). However, Facebook put a hefty requirement that created a lot of animosity amongst the internet community: their bone-headed approach to stop cybersquatters was to make it so that only Facebook Pages created before March 2009 AND having 1,000 or more fans were able to be named. As a result, company owners everywhere were up in arms, as anyone who met these requirements were able to take their company name.

The new date for "open" Facebook Page naming to everyone else was June 28th, 2009. However, many Page owners quickly complained about how there was no option to give their Page a vanity URL - whereas several others were able to do so. Currently, all pages need to fulfill the requirement of having at least 100 fans in order to have a vanity URL.

This process is strangely difficult to figure out, as Facebook never posted the link for naming a Page on the Pages dashboard. To get started, visit http://www.facebook.com/username. From there, you'll see a link that says "Set a username for your Pages" - click it, and a blue dialogue box will open up, with a dropdown for each of your pages.

Vanity URL eligibility
Only pages that have at least 100 fans are eligible to have a vanity URL. If you have the ability to advertise your Facebook Page on your website or e-mail footer, it would be in your best interest to attain that number of fans as quickly as possible.

Vanity URLs are not possible for generic, single-word Facebook URLs (like facebook.com/cookies or facebook.com/cars). So, you're limited to compound words or phrases, only (as you guessed it, those short, generic word URLs are probably being reserved for Big Business).

If your Facebook Page is not eligible for naming, you will get the following message: "(pagename) is not eligible for a username at this time. In the future, (pagename) will be able to set a username. Learn more."

Using periods in your Page name
When naming a page, you can only use letters, numbers and periods. Usernames that have periods essentially count both as a "period" and "non-period" version, making it worth your while to use them. For instance, "facebook.com/my.page" also counts as "facebook.com/mypage" - in essence, it's like having two usernames in one. Nobody else will be able to register either, too!