Hello, my name is _________.

We already talked about WHO should create your organization's Facebook Page; now let's continue on through the process of setting up the Page. There are a few more issues to take into consideration before you dive in. (If you're ready to take the plunge, though, here's a link!)

The first thing to do is to decide on your Page title and decide on your category.


These are the first two pieces of information that you enter, and they're also the two things that you can't edit once you submit them. (If you've created a Page already and you're unhappy with the name or category, you can delete and start over. That should be an option at the top of the "edit Page" page.)

So the name part is obvious: make sure you know whether you want to be the "Lab Theater" or the "Laboratory Theater," and make sure you don't make any typos, either! (A real life example: the first time I tried creating the Patron Technology Facebook Page, I was just testing things out and I named it "patron technology" -- all lower case! I had to delete that version and start over.)

As for categories, here's the list again.

Out of the arts organizations that I'm a "fan" of, it seems that the most popular choice of category is "Non-profit," closely followed by "Museum/Attraction" and "Other Business." I think all of those work perfectly well.

I've been specifically asked what category I recommend for a theater. I have to say, it really doesn't matter. These categories don't exactly DO anything anymore -- the category of your Page used to determine what kind of special features your Page could have, but ever since the big redesign in March, Pages are flexible enough that there's basically no functionality difference between categories.

And here's the real kicker: that category list I linked above is not the same list that you see when you're searching or browsing Fan Pages.

Where's "Museum/Attraction"? Where's "Other Business"? Facebook is inconsistent with their terminology. (The category you end up choosing will show up under your Page title when people are browsing a list, but not on the main screen of your page itself.)

This is all to say: be aware that you're making a permanent choice, but don't worry too much about choosing correctly.

I think maybe some level of consistency through the arts industry might be nice, though. In the comments, let everyone know how you classified your organization! Let others learn from your example (or, you know, copy off of you).