Written by author Alison Huntingford. I am not an expert on Facebook so I cannot take responsibility for any mistakes in this account, nor any problems encountered whilst using it.
BUILDING A FACEBOOK AUTHOR PAGE
Step 1: Start the page creation process
Log in to your Facebook account. You must have a personal profile to create a page.
Navigate to the "Pages" section in the menu (found by clicking the grid icon in the top right corner).
Click "Create new Page".
Step 2: Enter basic information
Page Name: Enter your exact business or brand name eg ‘John Smith author’
Category: Choose a category that best describes your business. You can add up to three categories.
Bio: Write a brief description of your page.
Click "Create Page" when you're done.
Step 3: Add more details and customize your page
Contact Information: THIS IS WHERE YOU NEED TO BE CAREFUL! If you have a physical location, add the address and business hours, if you want to. For online stores, you can set hours to 24/7. Add your website, BUT BEWARE of adding a personal phone number or email address as you will get bombarded with spam emails and phone calls, many of which are highly suspect! You do not have to put one on the page.
Photos: Add a profile picture (like your logo) and a cover photo. Tools like Canva or powerpoint can help create these graphics. Use a book cover design or something relevant.
OPTIONALS
Action Button: Choose an action button to encourage visitors, such as "Book Now," "Call Now," or "Send Message".
Connect WhatsApp: You can connect your business WhatsApp number to the page. Again beware of spam.
Step 4: Invite friends and finish
Invite friends from your personal profile to like your new page.
You can also adjust your page notification settings to manage what you see on your personal profile.
Click "Done" to finish creating the page.
USEFUL FEATURES
SCHEDULING POSTS a very useful feature which saves you having to put posts up every day if you have a launch or event coming up. You can schedule posts up to one month in advance, as many as you like. They can be edited or deleted at a later date if you wish.
To do: Once on your page, click the name or ‘see page’ to get a sidebar showing on the left hand side. Click on Meta Business Suite, down the bottom of this sidebar. Then click on ‘planner.’ Choose the time and date you want the post to appear and then construct the post. Then click schedule. This will then appear on the calendar. Close Meta Business Suite.
CREATING EVENTS On your page, click the drop down menu ‘more’ under your profile picture. Click ‘events’. Click ‘Create Event.’ Enter the details and save. You can add co-hosts, ticket links and more. Facebook friends can be invited to your events via this route which means that they get a notification that it is on.
WARNINGS
BEWARE of notifications saying that you have breached Facebook rules and need to contact them. These are scams and can enable people to hack into your account if you co-operate with them. Pages can then be deleted or corrupted.
MONITOR comments on your posts. There are people out there posing (usually)as widowed American ex-servicemen who will tell you how wonderful you are and ask to befriend you. Delete these comments and block them. (Apologies to any genuine widowed American ex-servicemen!)
BEWARE of getting dragged into advertising. If Facebook asks you if you want to ‘boost a post’, this is trying to get you to pay for an advert. Just close the pop-up window, unless you really want to. There is an ad centre that you can use, again on the side-bar, but prices are confusing and sometimes mis-leading. Adverts can be targeted at a certain audience, but I haven’t personally found them to be very effective.