This article offers tips answering the “how” to create a great Facebook page. From a business perspective, a Facebook page has two purposes:

  1. Foster loyalty among yoga students via participation; and
  2. Increase exposure of your business and brand via sharing.

There is so much you can do to create a great Facebook page for your yoga studio. This article sets out ideas and resources for creating a great Facebook page.

8 Ways to Create a Great Facebook Page for Your Yoga Studio

1. Set up a Facebook Page

Click here to create a Facebook page. It’s free and very easy to set up.

2. Become a fan on Facebook pages with many fans and analyze what those pages do

In particular, join yoga studio pages with a large number of fans.

Return regularly to these pages to see how they are updated and what kind of content is added.  Read what fans like and don’t like (i.e. respond to and don’t respond to).

3. Consider importing your yoga studio blog into your Facebook page.

You can import recent blog posts automatically in a number of methods. I tested three distinct methods. They are as follows:

  • Using the “Notes” App on Facebook. This tutorial steps you through this process. This is the blog post importing method I use on the Yoga Baron Facebook Page.  This method places your blog posts on your wall. You can, of course, intersperse your blog post excerpts with status updates.
  • Use the NetworkedBlogs App. I use this method for another Facebook Page. It creates a separate “Blog” tab in your Facebook page leaving your wall empty for only status updates.  This excellent tutorial steps you through using the NetworkedBlogs App.
  • Build a custom Facebook page with Lujure. You can build one page and one tab for free. This is a drag-and-drop Facebook customization platform. There’s an RSS widget that makes it really easy to import recent blog posts on your custom Facebook page.

Another method to import recent blog posts, one I didn’t try but is available and free is using the RSS App from Involver.

4. Consider importing your YouTube channel into your Facebook page

You can import videos in a number of ways. Two methods I used are as follows:

First, you can use Involver to import your entire YouTube channel. It’s free and very easy to do.

Second, you can upload videos directly to Facebook through the Video tag.

5. Add your newsletter sign-up form to your Facebook page

If you use an email autoresponder service, this tutorial very nicely steps you through the process of adding a newsletter sign-up form to your Facebook page.

6. Add other Apps you believe your fans (i.e. students) will like

Again, analyze other successful yoga studio Facebook pages to get App and content ideas. Check out some of the Apps at Involver and Lujure. You can use some of them for free. Of course, search out Apps within Facebook as well.

7. Create custom Facebook page designs

If you know HTML, you can use Involver’s static HTML App to create a customized Facebook page.

If you don’t know HTML, then check out Lujure which is drag and drop technology for fully customizing a Facebook page including adding a header, text, images, video, RSS feeds, etc. You can create one free tab. I created a custom page in about 30 minutes. It’s worth checking out.

UPDATE MARCH 31, 2011:

Wix just announced their Flash-based websites can now be embedded into Facebook pages. I have not tested this (however, I’ve built numerous websites in Wix. You can read my Wix review here – it’s another site I publish). You can build Wix sites for free but must put up with some advertising. You pay to have the ads removed.

NOTE:  It’s not readily apparent on the main Wix home page about this latest development. If you’re interested in building a custom Facebook page with Wix, then click Support in Wix and search “Facebook.” You’ll be provided tutorials on how to embed a Wix website into Facebook.

END OF UPDATE

I’m not sure having a customized Facebook page is all that important. I’d focus more on Tip #8 below (adding great content), but if you’re creative and would like to stand out, it’s now easy to create a custom Facebook page.

8. MOST IMPORTANT: Add content that inspires participation and sharing

This is the most important tip for creating a great yoga studio Facebook page.

When thinking about content to add, remember the two goals:

  1. Foster loyalty among yoga students via participation, and
  2. Increase exposure of your business and brand via sharing.

Taking the two goals into consideration, the following are content ideas that can achieve these goals:

  • Post questions that inspire responses
  • Post interesting and/or entertaining status updates
  • Post great photographs and/or videos
  • Hold contests
  • Invite yoga students to tell their yoga journey stories
  • Post surveys
  • Give away stuff such as free yoga classes
  • Post yoga news
  • Keep your events up-to-date
  • Put your class schedule on Facebook
  • Respond to fan questions – keep the dialogue going
  • Write reviews and encourage fans to write reviews of books, DVDs, etc.
  • Offer yoga and meditation tips of the day or week
  • Post yoga routines on your Facebook page (videos work as well)
  • Post fun quizzes

If your content is great, not only will you foster loyal fans and students, but some fans will “like” and “share” your Facebook page. This is when your exposure can explode locally. When this happens, your time invested into managing your Facebook page pays off in spades.

Oh yeah, have some fun with your Facebook page. Facebook pages bring a little of the personal into business. It’s a way to connect with your students and customers.

8 Reasons to create a Facebook page for your yoga studio

1. HUGE potential exposure for free

Although I believe better Facebook search options will be good, the real power of Facebook is the viral aspect of it with “Likes” and “Sharing.” How would you like to get a “Like” of your yoga studio Facebook page on the wall of a yoga student with 1,000 friends? Imagine 50 of such likes. Your exposure in this case is huge.

People like to recommend products and services they like to their friends. If you don’t make sharing easy, nobody will spread the word.

2. Create community and loyalty

Your yoga studio and students form a community. Facebook is all about community. The more you can foster that community, the more loyal your students will be. Loyal students are the lifeblood of a yoga studio.

3. Inform and update

Facebook makes it incredibly easy to keep your students and prospective students updated in real-time. Using your wall and events tabs, you can easily keep students apprised with what’s going on in your yoga studio (in addition to maintaining dialogue).

4. Facebook search improvement may be coming

Presently, when you search on Facebook, it’s the Bing search engine that delivers results. However, if Facebook creates an internal search that works, you’ll want to be ready with a Facebook page.

5. People use and stay within the Facebook community

Many of your yoga students likely use Facebook weekly, if not daily. They are familiar with the Facebook user interface and functionality. They may prefer going to your Facebook page for information than going to your yoga studio website. Give them the option.

Think about this, because in my view it’s very important. People spend hours at a time within the Facebook community. It’s like an Internet within the Internet. You definitely want to be situated in this Internet within an Internet as more and more people look for products and services within Facebook.

6. It’s easy and free

A Facebook page costs nothing. I suspect if Facebook search ever happens and it works, some businesses will opt to only have a Facebook page. It costs nothing and presently people don’t expect your page to be fancy.

In fact, people embrace the Facebook user interface simplicity. However, below I explain how you can fully customize a Facebook page for no cost and do it quickly and easily.

7. Create a social network for your yoga studio

You can import your recent blog posts into your Facebook page in many ways.

Moreover, if you use Twitter and/or have a YouTube channel, these promotional platforms can also easily be integrated into Facebook.  Essentially you create a social network for your yoga studio.

The best part (aside from being effective in promoting your yoga studio) is building social network costs you nothing except your time.

8. It’s easy to keep your Facebook page separate from your personal profile if you choose

Your business Facebook page(s) can be concealed from your personal profile if you prefer not to mix business and pleasure.  Whether you keep your personal and business Facebook participation separate is a personal judgment call.  I opt not to promote my business on my personal profile, but that’s just me.