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Facebook isn’t just a potential market that many haven’t “tapped”. It’s also a place for real-time, personal conversation and feedback from your constituents. You shouldn’t treat it trivially, but you shouldn’t be afraid of it either.

Many posts speak of the need to get started on Facebook and offer a long list of tips. Those lists can be quite daunting, so in this post we’ll help you get up and running from ground zero.

For this process to go smoothly, you should already have a personal Facebook account and be logged in. Don’t worry, you’re not going to share any of your personal information. Facebook just needs an administrator for the Facebook page, and you can do that via your personal account (and change it later if you wish).

Now, if you’re already familiar with Facebook for personal use, you’ll quickly notice how similar creating a page for your organization is to your own Facebook profile. Most of the functions like uploading pictures, posting updates, updating your organizational bio are almost exactly the same as your personal profile. The similarity, of course, is a deliberate design decision by Facebook to make it easier for us all to create our own pages within the Facebook ecosystem.

Let’s get started!

1. Create an Official Page

For this step, navigate to: http://www.facebook.com/page.

Note: Don’t create a “Community page.” Those are used for creating communities around ideas that don’t necessarily represent anything tangible.

Select your page type, give it the name of your organization, click the terms and conditions checkbox, and click “Create Official page.” It’s that simple.

Create a Facebook page

Now you’ll do some configuration before you promote it to the world.

2. Upload a logo or organizational image

Make sure you have your logo or a clearly identifiably branding image that your potential Facebook fans will be able to draw lasting connections with. It’s important that this image match up with your website and even print materials.

Put your mouse over the big grey “?” image and click “Change Picture”. Upload your logo or image and use one of the upload options to get it posted.

Upload a logo or organizational image

3. Update your organization’s bio and mission

You’ll need to make sure to update the organization details under the “info” tab. Write a well-crafted and concise bio of your organization and put it in the Company Overview box. Facebookers like short, sweet, and fun, and the more you deliver to that in your overview and bio, the better.

When you’re done updating your organizational information, click “Done Editing.”

Update your organization’s bio and mission

Note: Jill’s Habitat for Horses isn’t real, but if you’re a horse enthusiast and your name is Jill, you now have a stellar concept for a nonprofit.

4. Invite friends

With these basic steps accomplished you can start adding people. This process works the same way as getting people to sign up for an event or any other “suggest to friends” workflow on Facebook.

The key here is to get at least 25 fans to be able to register your own unique Facebook URL, like facebook.com/jillshorses, rather than facebook.com/pages/Jills-Habitat-for-Horses/115950995087518. The former is much easier to market on websites and print media. To get to 25, ensure your board, A true friend’s recommendation goes a long way, so take advantage of the “viral” nature of the network!

5. Invest time in posting regular, quality content

Upload some photos, start posting news and events, and get engaged as soon as possible. At the very least, commit to posting and interacting with your fan base at least once a day. One day could be a simple text post--a unique stat, a bold statement, a question. The next day could be a photo.

There are also many applications and features that you can start deploying on your Facebook page to help with engagement, so start using them.

Some Facebook Applications

We can’t speak enough to the need for nonprofits to stay engaged in their Facebook pages. The more you post and update, the better your chances of engaging your constituents on a deeper and ongoing level. Eventually, your fans will want to come to your page to get the latest scoop about your organization, events and other goodies about you, like how to donate!

There are so many other things you can do to give your Facebook page the best chance at success. In the next blog post we’ll show you how to publish content to your page automatically via your blog, get more fans, see their demographics and analytics, and more!