Okay, so you’ve been told you can use a Facebook business page to get more clients.

And this year is the year you’re going to finally wrap your head around marketing … and that includes Facebook.

But where should you start?

Chances are you already have a personal Facebook page. So let’s start there.

Facebook Personal Profile vs. Facebook Business Page

Do you create a new profile or build a Facebook business page? What’s the difference?

The short answer is to build a Facebook business page. Using a Facebook profile (your personal page) for business is a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Service.

A business page also comes with several advantages. First, they don’t require people to accept a friend request from a stranger — they can just like your page. Second, it gives you access to analytics for the page and allows you to advertise on Facebook if you choose.

And third, it allows you to schedule posts, which can help you build an audience without spending all your time on Facebook. More on that in a minute.

What to Post (and Where to Find it)

Once you’ve got a page, how do you decide what to post? And how do you get people to like the page?

First, it’s important to note you have a special power when it comes to social media: You train dogs for a living. You get to post cute dog pics and have it be legit marketing. For real.

So, once you’ve created your page you’ll want to put up a few starter posts, just so there’s something to look at for anyone you invite to come like and follow your page.

A few ideas might be pictures or videos of your dogs or your clients’ dogs doing tricks, blog posts from your website or websites you follow, and information about upcoming classes (and where to go for more information).

Then, once you have a few posts up for people to admire, you can start out by inviting your friends and family to like the page. This can help you get referrals, so don’t hesitate to invite everyone from Great Aunt Matilda to Joe Shmo down the street — you want them to know you’re training dogs for a living so they can point friends of theirs your way.

But how do you expand beyond your existing network?

Here are a few ideas:

1. Follow industry thought leaders and send them an invite. Some may follow you back and/or share your content!
2. Like pages of other local dog-related businesses (and rescues!) in your area.
3. Share posts from other businesses your clients (and potential clients) might be interested in or tag them in your posts.

For example, if there’s a new dog friendly restaurant you ate at recently, why not like their Facebook page and tag them in a post raving about how nice it was to eat there with your dog? There’s a good chance they’ll share it, and then their audience will see it — getting your page seen by more people in the area.

The Next Challenge: Not Letting Facebook Rule Your Life

Once you’ve gotten things started, it’s very easy to get sucked into the Facebook vortex, spending more and more time on Facebook until you feel like all you ever do is think about post ideas, or to forget to update your page at all, which makes having a Facebook business page pointless.

I have a trick I use to achieve a nice balance.

I dedicate a small chunk of time one day each week (usually for me it’s about an hour or two on Sunday) to setting up posts for that week in Facebook’s business page scheduler. To do that, I rely on two great (free!) tools: Feedly and Buffer.

Want to learn more about hands-off social media management? Learn more about my method on my blog posts here and here.