Great! You’ve decided to sign up for a Facebook Business page and begin marketing your travel business on Facebook. It is helpful to gather the following content ahead to save time during the page building process:
1). Do you have a Facebook Personal account?
If you wish to create a Facebook Business page, you must first create a Facebook personal account. You don’t need to be active on it, but you do need to have one as all Business pages are managed by personal accounts.
If you do not yet have a Facebook personal account, please create one: Click Here
Once you have created a personal account, or if you already have a personal account, please make sure you are able to successfully log into it, and move on to Step #2.
2). Decide on a business page name:
First things first, you will need to decide on what your Facebook Business page will be named.
It’s beneficial that you include “TierOne Travel” in your business name, for branding recognition.
For example:
“Jane Doe – TierOne Travel Consultant”
“Jane Doe – Travel Specialist, TierOne Travel”
Decide on what your name will be and write it down somewhere you can easily find when you are building your Facebook for Business page. Then proceed to Step 3.
Note: You can request a change to your Business page name later down the road if you need. It has to be approved by Facebook and can take a few days for approvals to go through, so it is definitely helpful to get it right the first time!
3). Write descriptions about yourself / your business:
This content will appear in the “About” section of your Facebook page. This is a blurb you can use to introduce yourself and your business to future and existing clients. Feel free to mention your specialties, awards, recognitions etc.
Try to incorporate keywords in this blurb that your potential clients may search (such as “cruise”, “Europe”, “safaris”, etc. – whatever it is you’d like to sell), as including keywords here will help your page to be picked up on search engines.
Facebook allows one short description, and one long description. The short description is limited to 155 characters, so you may want to create a long and short version of your blurb. This short description appears prominently near the top of your Facebook page on both desktop and mobile. (You can use this website here to check the character count on your description if you like)
Example:
Short Description:
Jane is a travel specialist with TierOne Travel. She loves creating customized itineraries that help her clients enjoy their vacations to the fullest.
Long Description:
Jane is a seasoned travel specialist with TierOne Travel. She has worked in the travel industry for over 25 years. She loves creating customized itineraries that help her clients enjoy their vacations to the fullest. She takes care of every detail, so that her clients don’t have to worry about a thing. She specializes in cruise travel, destination weddings, Europe, river cruises, and African Safaris. Recently, she has visited Greece, Thailand, Zambia and Cook Islands. Contact Jane for all of your travel needs and you will not be disappointed!
Keep these descriptions somewhere on your computer that is easy for you to locate them during your training session, and move on to Step 4.
4). Decide if you would like to include business history:
Facebook allows you to include history by year for your business. You can add in milestones that you’re proud of, such as winning an award or getting certified in a particular product. It is up to you if you’d like to include this information or not! You can always fill it in later as well. Proceed to Step 5.
5). Choose a profile photo:
This photo will be shown as a large thumbnail on your page at all times. It will also be displayed next to your name when you comment on other pages and accounts on Facebook.
You can change your profile photo as often as you need.
Essentially, you want your clients to associate this image with your brand, so a photo of yourself is better than a photo of a travel destination, as it provides a more personal feel.
Profile pictures should be at least 180 pixels wide by 180 pixels tall, so use a high-resolution image when possible.
Select the profile photo you would like to use and save it somewhere on your computer you can easily find it, such as on your Desktop. Then, proceed to Step 6.
6). Choose a cover photo:
This photo is cropped horizontally and will be displayed at the top of your page on both desktop and mobile.
This is a great place to upload a photo of a travel destination you are currently trying to market.
You can change the cover photo as often as you’d like, so it’s great to always have images on hand for consideration.
We have put together a gallery of travel images you can choose from if you are unsure about what to choose. These photos have already been pre-cropped to fit for Facebook Cover.
If You Want to Get Creative:
Some business owners may wish to have graphic designs created for more creativity (such as a collage of photos, or images with promotional information overlaid on them). TierOne’s Marketing Manager can help you design these (please inquire for info).
However, if you are tech-savvy and decide to design a cover photo on your own, it’s helpful to know that cover photo dimensions are 851 x 315 px (but only the center 563 x 315px portion of the picture appears on mobile, so keep critical information/imagery inside these dimensions).
If you wish to try your hand at designing a cover image on your own, many photo editing apps like Canva, Pic Monkey or BeFunky can help with creating images of just the right dimensions.
Example of a creative cover photo that merges various images and text:
Once you have gathered this content, it’s time to create your Business page on Facebook!
Your training session on “How to Create a Facebook Business Page” will require you to have the above information completed and ready to go at the time of the training session.