How to Create a Facebook Business Page (For Counselors)

 I’ll cut to the chase. I skip the introduction paragraphs on informational blogs I read. I’ll spare

you the pain. If you want a lovely intro about why you need a Facebook Business Page you can

read one here.

1) To set up a Facebook Business Page go to your profile on a laptop or desktop and click on the icon with all the dots. 

2) When you hover over it, the label will say, See all. Click the icon. A menu will pop out. The

right column menu will be labeled, Create. Halfway down the list you will see the option to

create a page. Click on that option.

3) A pop-up window will ask if you want to Leave Page. You do. You will be taken to a form

that looks like this:

4) For your Page Name You will want to put your Business Name.

The “Category” is a drop down menu. Type “Counselor”, “Marriage Therapist”, “Sex Therapist”, “Psychologist”, “Psychotherapist”, “Social Worker” or something you think more appropriately describes you. I know the first 6 terms are available through the drop-down menu. I am not sure if what you think you are will be. 😉

Your Bio has a 100 character word limit. It is a great place for a couple of options.

1)    your slogan or something you say often in therapy, such as “Choose the Change you want!” Or “Therapy is place to find your way forward!”

2)    Something professionally endearing or quirky about you which will set you apart. Such as verbs: “Compassionate, deep, thought-provoking therapy available 4 days a week!”

3)    Your name and credentials if these are not part of your business name.

***Please note: If you are in LMFT Associate you are boxed into this option. You’ll need to put your name AND who supervises you in this space. According to the 801.53(d) of the Marriage and Family Therapy Rule book, which as I am writing this was updated 3/08/2023, LMFT Associates need to clearly state their license status and who is supervising them on all their advertising material. To be safe you should check with the handbooks associated with your license.

Once you’ve filled everything in, hit that Create Page Button!

 5) Now you’ll see a new form. It should look like this:

Make your contact information stupid-easy to find by filling this form out completely! 

• Do not leave the website blank. If you don't have one, link it to your Psychology Today profile, Monarch Profile, or any other profile you might have on the internet. The more you link your profiles together, the easier it is for people to find you. 

• Do not leave your phone number blank. If you only have a personal phone number and rely on Psychology Today to protect your number for you, please look into another option like Sideline. I've been using them for about a year and have been incredibly happy with them and find them cost effective too. (P.S. I don't get any kick backs from Sideline, I just genuinely enjoy this company and want to pass along the information.) 

• You'll also want a business email address and those are pretty easy to create. 

• If you don't have an office address, you can partially fill out the address portion of the form. For example for my Meta Ads for Counselors Page, I just have the address listed as "Fort Worth, Texas." Be prepared to field questions about where you are located though. Or loose clients. Or make it incredibly clear that you are a telehealth provider.

6) Now for a bit of creativity! On the next form you get to make your page eye catching! Even though your page will be the invisible traffic controller, you can still spiff it up a bit. You want it to look polished, professional, and uniquely you. The section for making your page look awesome should look something like this when you first arrive:

• I recommend using a professional head shot of you looking directly at the camera for the profile picture. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, you want yours to convey, “I see you. I get you”. Remember we are practicing putting ourselves out there. We are trying to make connections with people.

• A logo is a great option for the cover photo. If you don’t have a logo, find a stock photo on Canva or something similar that captures your brand or the essence of what it’s like to come see you for counseling. Are you bookish? Maybe your cover photo will be an up-close shot of books on a shelf. Do you use metaphor in your counseling? Which metaphor is your favorite? Find a photo of that.

• Ideally you will change the stock photo you grab from Canva so you aren’t just taking something and slapping it on your business page. Changes can be subtle. Just enough to make it uniquely yours. A border perhaps. Your business name scrawled across the left-hand corner. A random ladybug. Anything will do.

Here are a couple of examples of what I mean:

And if you want a step by step tutorial of how I created these unique images, I walk you through it here.

7) When you are done making it beautiful, don’t forget to add an Action Button too. I suggest Learn More and linking it to your website’s "About Provider” section. You are still trying to present yourself as a good fit for your target audience.

It might seem tempting to try the Book Now button, but it will want you to link to a Facebook scheduler or another 3rd party scheduler. It’s better to link people to your website and have a button there to Request Appointments. Depending on your EHR system you can usually link your availability directly to that button so potential clients can essentially schedule themselves. This way, all your availability can be managed in one place. All you have to do is accept or decline the appointment then send the intake paperwork. Easy peasy. I explain this process in depth in my book: Facebook Ads For Counselors.

Good news!! We are coming down the home stretch! The last few pages of set up are straight forward.

8) Don’t opt into the What’s App feature. It’s just one more thing to keep up with and one more avenue for people to contact you that is not calling you, emailing you, or scheduling through your website. You really want to create a tight funnel for the traffic to flow from the ads to your site. Not from your ads to your What’s app or your Facebook page or your site. The tighter the funnel the less confused your target audience will be about how to schedule with you. The less confused they are, the more likely they are to schedule and you can start doing what you do best. Helping them.

9) Do invite your friends to like your page and encourage them to invite their friends to like your page. Good old word of mouth never hurt anyone. 😊(Let me be clear here. You won’t be counseling your friends or your friends’ friends because of that dual relationship thing I mentioned earlier. #Ethics But you do want them all to have you in mind for when the friends of the friends of the friends ask about a good counselor in town. 😉)

Hope this tutorial has eased your anxieties about how to set up a Facebook Business Page to be Ad ready! If I didn’t cover something in this tutorial please reach out at Amanda@FacebookAdsForCounselors.com  and let me know.  

Otherwise, let's move one to the next step which is posting a few post to your new business page.

If you are ready to skip to running ads, check out my e-book: Facebook Ads For Counselors. I'll walk you though the process of customizing your Facebook Ads to your specialty step-by step with screen shots.