• brand?
• company?
• organization?
• charity?
• cause?
• issue?
• product?
• service?
• anything that someone might like?

Then give people an opportunity to become your fan on Facebook.

With more than 200 million active users (half of whom check it daily), Facebook should be a key part of your communications strategy.

Since it’s such a great tool for reaching a targeted audience, I’m exploring Facebook as part of my job search strategy (forgive me for a little self-promotion now).

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Know anyone looking for a communications specialist?
Send them my resume! Thank you.
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Today, we’ll cover the basics of creating your first fan page. You can also check out my step-by-step guide to advertising on Facebook.

Creating a fan page costs nothing, and it allows you to connect with your audiences in meaningful ways. Facebook treats pages like personal profiles: your fans will receive updates from you on their homepage, just like they do from their friends. You can’t buy that. Obviously, you want fans.

Here’s the step-by-step guide to creating a Facebook fan page:

Step 1: Visit facebook.com/pages/manage/ and click on “+ Create Page”.

Step 2: Choose a category, name your page, and state your authority to speak on your client’s behalf.

Step 3: Now you need to add content. Add (1) a photo, (2) a blurb, and (3) some background with a link to your website. If you have other stuff to add–even better!

Step 4: Check your settings. Click “Edit Page” under your profile picture. Here you have options for gender, age restrictions, published/unpublished, and applications.

Step 5: Publish. Double-check everything first, then change “Published Status” under “Settings.”

Step 6: Get fans. Congratulations! You have a fan page. Celebrate! But don’t think that we’re going to stop there. Now you need some fans. You start. Click “Become a fan!” Then you’ll have the opportunity to suggest that your friends also become fans.

Step 7: Advertise your new page to your target audience. Follow my step-by-step guide to advertising on Facebook. If you select your fan page as an ad’s destination, Facebook will automatically include social actions: users can become your fan directly from the ad, as well as see any of their friends who are already fans.

Don’t forget to send people to your page from other places as well (like your website and Twitter).

Step 8: Update your page regularly (but don’t spam).

Continuing adding photos, wall posts, video, links, discussions, etc. Make your page valuable and worth people’s time, and your fan base will continue to grow.

You can even target updates to followers with specific demographics.

Step 9: Track metrics (Click “View Insights” under your picture). Here you can see who’s interacting with your page and how.

That’s it! You’re well on your way to Facebook success.

If you’ve developed a fan page, share your experience in the comments! How have you used fan pages? How has your brand benefited as a result? What challenges did (or do) you face?

If you’re just considering creating a fan page, what’s holding you back?

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Like it? Tweet it! A step-by-step guide to creating and promoting a Facebook fan page: http://djgpr.com/FBfan

You can also become a fan of “Helping David get a job” on Facebook!

Here’s the step-by-step guide:

1) Pick your product/service. Since I’m currently looking for work, I’m going to experiment with advertising myself on Facebook.

2) Choose or create your landing page. This can be any existing page on your website (or a new, target landing page, a Facebook fan page, etc) but it must be a webpage, not a file (you can’t link directly to a PDF).

3) Go to facebook.com/ads/. Click “Create an Ad.”

4) Write your ad; upload a picture. This is what the Facebook user will see beside their profile. Don’t be afraid to get creative. Facebook makes it easy to try and test lots of options against each other. We’ll get to that in a minute.

4) Pick your target. This is where the magic happens. As you can see, I’ve chosen to target men and women over 30, who have graduated from college, live in regions where I’d like to work, and have a job title that oversees communications specialists.

Facebook tells me that there are only 80 people whose profiles match those qualifications, but that’s okay, because those are the exact 80 people I want to reach.

5) Choose your budget. Here, I’ve decided that I’m willing to spend up to $2.00/day to get my ad in front of these 80 people. That daily budget is shared by all the ads in this campaign. Since I’m only running it through the month of June, the most I’ll end up spending is $16.00.  In reality, I’ll likely spend less, since I’m targeting such a small audience.

Choosing between “Pay for Impressions (CPM)” and “Pay for Clicks (CPC)” is a little harder.

CPC means you only pay when someone actually clicks your ad. This is a nice way to think about things: after all, aren’t you willing to pay 50 cents to get your resume seen by a hiring manager in your industry and target location? I know I am. Because this ad will only be shown to your ideal customer, each click is worth the money. Again, if no one clicks, you pay nothing.

The other option is CPM: how much you’re willing to pay for 1,000 impressions–not how many times it’s read, but how many times a page loads that has your ad on it. Since I’ve discovered that it takes significantly fewer than 2,000 impressions to get a click on my ad, I’ve chosen to bid on impressions instead of clicks.

6) Review and order. You’ll need to have a credit card handy.

7) Split test. Repeat the process to add some additional ads to your campaign. As long as they’re all part of the same campaign, it won’t cost you anything more. This lets you try a different headline, copy, target, photo or bid. Experiment! Then you can stay with the ads that give you the most bang for your buck. Try using your existing ad as a template: click “Create a Similar Ad.”

8) Track at facebook.com/ads/manage/. Find out what works and what doesn’t, and adjust accordingly.

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Like it? Tweet it: How to advertise on Facebook: a step-by-step guide. http://djgpr.com/FBadbasics