I received a call this week from a business owner who was greatly concerned about his business Facebook fan page not showing up on his city’s Facebook Places. He went on to say that in his particular business, people look for him regularly on that page. Hats off to the gentlemen for having a fan page and more so for knowing where he wants to be found.
If you have never seen your business in Facebook Places, in the search bar type in your business’s city and state. Then type a category your business should be found. In the example below, you’ll see that in Euless, Texas I am the only company found for Web Design.
Did you find that surprising? I certainly did, as I know that there are quite of few companies that do “web design” in this city. These missing companies obviously don’t know how to get found on Facebook — yet! Below are my quick instructions to make sure you get listed.
1. You Must Have a Business Facebook Fan page. This is a given, so I won’t write any more about this here.
2. You Must Have updated your business address in the info tab. On your fan page, click “Edit Page,” then “Basic Information.”I get asked all the time, “I am a solo-preneur or small business entrepreneur and I don’t have a business address. Do I have to put my home address?” I don’t know what to tell you, you’re not going to be found otherwise. Listing a city and state helps, but Facebook gives preferences to those who have real business addresses and they appear to cross check through outside services like http://www.bing.com. Tip: List your business there too if you haven’t already.
3. You Must List Your Business in a Category, and Place Sub-Category. Here’s the real secret, most people don’t take the time to list their business in the “Place Sub-Category” (see below). These are the keys to getting indexed correctly because you have to choose Facebook’s categories not your own. If your business fits in more than one category, by all means list it. Use all three if you can. Note: It appears that these categories can be changed or modified by clients and visitors. That’s really not true. They can modify your category on their personal Facebook, but only the business fan page Admin(s) can change the “real” ones.
4. Be Patience, Wait, & Spot Check. This process can take a few days and upwards to several weeks, especially if you’ve entered your address for the first time. Very much like listing in a search engine, the changes are not indexed instantaneous. You will need to spot check your city place listing several weeks from now. Tip: Some of my client have complained that their last category does not showing up. Make sure and give a few seconds before clicking “Save Changes” when you add or change a category. Doing this procedure fast, seem to drop your last category listing.
Fred Campos is Chief of Marketing at FunCitySocialMedia.com. Like this post? Make sure you subscribe to our blog!
Being found is important to your business. What other tips about Facebook Places would you add?