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OM LINE TRAINING GUIDES: FACEBOOK 20 December 2014

HOW-TO FACE-UP TO FACEBOOK

A quick guide to setting up and running a Facebook page

Why Facebook? More than 1 billion
people worldwide use
Facebook is ubiquitous. Most people (1.23 billion to be precise) have a Facebook. This means
Facebook profile these days, so it makes it a great way to reach your that even considering
current and potential customers. the well-documented
issues around privacy
It is a free and simple way to get yourself online. In the short term it can and excessive time-
even substitute for a website, although this has drawbacks and should consumption, it still
only be a temporary measure. remains the largest
social network, and
Profile or Page? therefore an essential
place for your business
Always a Page for business use. If you have a Facebook Profile people to be represented.
have to become friends with you, which means you can see all their
personal posts. They might not want their yoga teacher to see these and
so not connect with you.

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OM LINE TRAINING GUIDES: FACEBOOK 20 December 2014

A Facebook Page is a much better and more
professional approach. Your customers ‘Like’
your page, so they don’t have to share anything
with you they don’t want to.

Additionally a Page has a number of features not
in a Profile, which when you get more used to
using it, will become really valuable.

Ready to start?

If you already have a Facebook Profile you
should login with that and then create your page
at:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/create/

Choose ‘Local Business or Place’ if you want
people to be able to leave reviews, show
opening hours and an address (optional). It is
generally the most relevant category for most
yoga teachers and will suit you better than being
a ‘Company’ or a ‘Community’.

Make sure you think carefully about your A Facebook Page is
Facebook Page’s name - it is quite hard to much more
change it once you have created your page. appropriate for your
Make it professional, memorable and as close to business than a
the name you use for your studio as possible, if not exactly the same. Profile.

Facebook will guide you through setting up your page. Don’t be scared, it’s
really quite simple.

“The smallest How to Use Facebook

deed is better The best thing to do is get started.
Don’t worry if you feel nervous. Just
than the greatest remember these Golden Rules:

intention” Never say anything on Facebook you

wouldn’t say in a class

- JOHN BURROUGHS Do you swear or talk about politics in

class? No? Then don’t do that on social

media. Have a separate personal

Facebook Profile if you want to share or

discuss things that don’t belong with your business.

Be professional and write properly
Think about what you are going to write. Read it over and check it for
spelling mistakes and grammar. Make it easy to read and the phrasing
simple. Never send anything that you haven’t read over at least three
times, especially if sending from a phone with auto-correct!

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OM LINE TRAINING GUIDES: FACEBOOK 20 December 2014

Be friendly and polite
Just as you wouldn’t swear, also don't be
nasty to people on social media. Even if it
is justified. Remember to breathe deep and
step away if something you read annoys
you.

Sometimes being ‘real’ on your Facebook
page is OK as long as you are not in the
midst of a rage. But later, when you have
worked through an issue in your life, you
might share a positive solution to the
problem, for example.

Be yourself
The worst thing you can do is try to be
someone else. Just be yourself, but maybe
with a few wise filters!

A little humour can go Have fun
a long way to keep This stuff shouldn’t be too serious. People
your Facebook Page love a good laugh so bring humour and
interesting and softness into your messages. Think of all
increase your likes the things that make you a good yoga
and interactions. teacher (compassion, empathy, ability to
communicate, being a good listener…) and
let those shine through.

If you love silly cat videos then share them occasionally, there is a good
chance your students do too!

Talk about things you are interested in
Don’t just talk about your classes, share your favourite articles from yoga
journals or the news, share motivational quotes, yoga and wellbeing tips,
photos of people (maybe you?) doing yoga.

Sometimes even a few pictures of your life outside of yoga can help to let
people feel comfortable with you. When I share cute pictures of my cat I
get more likes than when I share about yoga! There should be a good
balance of yoga to cat posts though…

Increasing your Likes
Sadly Facebook make it quite hard for us to be seen by our ‘Likers’, e.g our
customers. They use an algorithm to calculate who gets shown in
newsfeeds and one of things that helps you get shown is getting
‘interactions’. Interactions are when people like your individual posts and
leave comments. As a result there a few things you should do to increase
the effectiveness of your Facebook Page:

•Ask a question in your posts. Questions invite interaction and have proven
to be a great way to appear in newsfeeds
•Include an image or link. A post with no links or images are a bit dull so
often are filtered out

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OM LINE TRAINING GUIDES: FACEBOOK 20 December 2014

• Reply to comments to generate conversation
• Get your friends to ‘Like’ your page and

encourage your students to as well
• Use your other digital marketing to share your

Facebook Page - you can link your Facebook
and Twitter accounts together, and include a link
to your Page it in your e-newsletters
• There is also a useful Facebook Group called
UK Yoga Likes Ladder. Go to:

www.facebook.com/groups/ukyogalikesladder/

And post a request for people to like your page.
Don’t forget to include a direct link so they can
find you easily

Act as Your Page
It’s very easy to get confused on Facebook and
post to your Page from your personal profile.

A safe way to avoid this is to make sure you are
‘Acting as Your Page’. Using the small down arrow
in the top right of the page, you will see it says
‘Use Facebook as:’ select your Page name and
then everything you do will be as your Page.

This ensures that all your posts to your own Make sure that you
Facebook Page are correctly authored, and also are ‘acting as your
any likes you give to other businesses, or Page’ when you are
comments you leave on their posts, lead back to carrying out actions
your business. relating to your
business on
Make sure if you are in this mode you are also thinking ‘business’ the Facebook.
whole time! And when you want to return to being your own Profile, go
back and ‘Use Facebook as:…you!

Learn about hashtags

Yep hashtags are on Facebook too! A hashtag is a way of making a normal
word or name into something that can be easily searched for. The most
likely one you will use is #DruYoga or more simply #yoga.

Depending on where you live you may find that people in your local area
use a specific hashtag, for example in Walthamstow local people use
#awesomestow and actively search for interesting local classes and events
tagged with this.

You can add two or three hashtags to the end of a Facebook page post to
help people find you within the millions of posts made each day. It’s a
useful way to make your Page more visible. Be wise, make them relevant
to your post, and don’t use loads. It looks awful to see a one sentence post
followed by 50 hashtags!

Search using hashtags
Now you know that Facebook has hashtags you can use them as a way to
search for interesting content to share on your Facebook page! Just pop
one into the search box at the top of the page and see what you can find.

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