Day 4: Social Profiles And Your Facebook Group

Two jobs today: tidy the profiles people land on, and create a place for them to gather.

Cleaning up your profiles

1. Update bios. Keep business and personal details current. Check the links still work. Keep to one call to action.
2. Update banners and backgrounds. Profile picture, cover photo and backgrounds should match your current branding, especially after a logo or colour change.
3. Organise your following. Build lists by interest, including people who post on topics you care about. It keeps you organised and gives you things worth sharing.
4. Look at competitors' pages. See which channels they use, how they talk to followers, when they post and what they post.
5. Check your sharing buttons and links. Share buttons bring referral traffic, and plugins break. Make sure your link page points where you want it to.
6. Set goals and be consistent. Review quarterly: what is working, what is not.

Setting up your Facebook group

Once your profiles say the same thing, give people somewhere to gather.

1. Create the group. Click "Groups" to the left of your newsfeed, then "+ Create Group".

2. Choose your settings. Name it, invite people, pick your privacy. The name should be short and say plainly what the group is for. Personalise invitations with a short note. For privacy: public if you want the group to attract people, closed if it is for customers only or may carry anything sensitive.

3. Upload a group photo. Treat it like a book cover: visually clear and obviously related to the group's purpose. Do this before inviting anyone.

4. Work through the rest of the settings. Under "Edit Group Settings" add a description, pick a group type, add tags and set the location. These help the right people find you and tell new members how the group runs.

5. Write the first post, and make it interactive. A poll works well: ask members what they actually want to discuss.

6. Promote it. Share to your own timeline, to other groups, to an event, by message. Email colleagues who might pass it on to their own networks.