Facebook is not just for sharing photos of cranky cats and smiling babies with your uninterested friends. It is actually a hugely important way to get thousands of people interacting with your business online and offline.

Facebook is also not just for young people. The growing demographic for Facebook is the over 40s age group. There are also more women than men using Facebook and as most businesses know women are generally the purchases, providers of information and decision makers in the household.

Here are steps you can follow to set up your Facebook page:

• Research other businesses Facebook pages
  One of the best things you can do before creating your business page is to research some other Facebook pages especially pages belonging to your competitors. Have a look at their pages and take note of not just how they look, but how they interact with their customers.
• Set up a Page
  You need to get a Facebook Page, not a ‘profile’. A profile is for a personal use, businesses need a ‘page’. If your business has a profile you need to change to a page as Facebook regularly deletes these without notice and then you will have lost all of your followers!
• Add your information
  Make sure you add a really detailed set of information like your business address, services, opening hours and what it is that you do. Make it as detailed as possible.
• Add some photos
  Click the “Photo” link up the top and then “Create an album” and go ahead and add some photos of your shopfront, your staff or your town. Then create another album for your various product lines. People can now share these with their friends. Make sure you give them all meaningful captions.
• Add a profile photo
  You’ll need a profile photo. This is the little photo on the left hand side. This is the image that people will see in their feeds so it needs to represent your business’ brand. A logo is generally the best option as this will reinforce your business messaging. It should be at least 180 pixels wide.
• Invite your friends
  If you are already active on Facebook as a personal user it is a good idea to invite all your friends and get them to spread the word. This can give you a really important initial boost.
• Start interacting
  Now you can begin interacting with current and potential customers. You can share photos, ideas, tips – anything that will compliment your brand and make people want to receive your posts.

To build up your initial following you might like to consider investing in Facebook advertising. For a very small amount of money you can put your Facebook page in front of a lot of people. When you purchase the ad space you select the demographic of the people you want to see your ad. Once you have a large amount of followers they will do your marketing for you by ‘liking’ and ‘sharing’ your posts. This is also why you need to make your posts interesting, funny or informative.