How To Set Up a Facebook Page for Your School
Here are some step-by-step instructions on how to set up a Facebook Page for your school. You can either watch the YouTube video below, or follow the step by step instructions below the video.
Using a Personal Facebook Account
To create a Facebook Business Page for your school, you will need a personal Facebook account to set it up. Don’t worry – the personal account will not be visible to anybody looking at the school’s Facebook page.
PLEASE NOTE!
I really do not advise creating a personal Facebook account specifically to link to your school Facebook page, as Facebook will consider this to be a fake account and may close your account, or prevent you from using Facebook paid adverts in future. Use a genuine Facebook personal account belonging to a member of staff, then add other members of staff to the Facebook Page for your school.
Creating The Page
To set up the business page
- Go to the square in the top right corner and then go down to ‘page’.
- Once you click on it, you will be redirected to create the page.
- Name the page after your school so the page can easily be found.
- Give the page a category – I would recommend ‘school’. You can add up to 3 categories
Add in a bio to give people a description of the school. Remember to include the type of school, age range of students, and highlight your school’s strengths and its Unique Selling Point.
Then select Create Page.
Add in your schools information – contact/website/location/opening hours
Using Canva to Create a Cover Image
You will want to add a profile picture and a cover photo so that people can identify your school. You can upload a cover photo directly to your Facebook page, but if the photo needs resizing or you would like to add text to it, you can use Canva to do this. Canva is a free and easy tool to use when creating images for pages like this.
If you open Canva you can search for Facebook cover photo and find a template which will be the correct size, and upload your photo to it. You can easily add text to it if you wish. Or you can use one of the template designs and customize it with your own images. Once your file is ready, name it, click on Share and download it as a Jpeg or PNG file.
Once downloaded go back into your unfinished Facebook page and upload it as your cover image, where you can reposition it to fit the box. You can preview what your page will look like on mobile and on desktop too.
Once you’ve personalised the page, you can see there is an action button, this will give people who view your page a prompt on how to engage with you.
Next it will ask you to connect to Whatsapp. This is because the company Meta that owns Facebook also owns Whatsapp and Instagram. If your school uses Whatsapp you can link it, otherwise press next.
You will then be able to invite friends to follow the page but for your school I would skip this stage.
Completing Your Page
Next you will be given the option to receive marketing from Meta. You can either keep these notifications or turn them off. I would recommend keeping profile notifications on as it does give you any notifications about your profile or you about services available.
Now you can see the page layout and make any changes you would like to by editing the page. If you do, make sure you save them.
Once everything is set up you have the option of posting to your account. You can use this to give out updates on what’s happening in your school. To do this, select ‘what’s on your mind’ or any of the options below.
Now you can see what your page looks like. Anything you post will be visible here. People can interact by liking commenting or sharing your post.
Some extra security you may want to add to your account can be found in the security panel.
To link an Instagram page, open settings and privacy, then linked accounts. Connect account and then log into instagram and it will be connected.
Now your school’s Facebook page is set up and you can post whatever you like!
If you set up a Business Portfolio, you can schedule posts in advance, see the Insights or analytics for your account and place paid adverts. This is covered in a separate video “How to Set up a Business Portfolio in Meta for your School”.
If you would like to learn more about how to market your school, check out our Marketing for Schools Courses and our Social Media Marketing for Schools Courses