There’s over 2.1 billion people using Facebook every month and this number is growing. It’s where people are hanging out online and as a yoga teacher, you simply must have a Facebook Yoga Business Page

Every yoga teacher’s marketing plan should include clear, well thought out branding, a website, email list and social media presence – including a Facebook Yoga Business Page.

Despite it becoming harder and harder to organically reach your fans on Facebook, the platform should still be high on your priority list simply because it has the most users and the best advertising opportunities. A Facebook Yoga Business Page enables you to unlock all of the business features that Facebook has to offer.

You don’t need to be an insta-yogi, a marketing guru, or have bucket loads of cash to build an audience on Facebook or to effectively utilise the platform’s business tools.

Here are just some of the benefits of having a Facebook yoga business page:

• Google loves Facebook business pages
• You can add a link to your blog posts
• Let your students know about offers
• Ability to schedule content
• More professional than using your personal Facebook page
• Can assign admin roles (if you have employees)
• Ability to set up several business pages

So what is a Facebook yoga business page?

You probably already have a Facebook profile. Now what you need is a Facebook Yoga Business Page. This is a dedicated place where students can be kept updated on your classes and workshops.

You can use a Page as a separate place to promote your classes and events so that you don’t need to use your personal profile, which is only seen by your friends and close network.

Creating your Facebook yoga business page in 7 simple steps

1. Prepare your content

Before you start, gather all the things you’ll need as the whole process will be much easier if you have everything ready to go from the start.

Images:

Your profile image should be a medium-sized picture of you with your face to the camera, smiling and looking approachable!

To ensure the image is clear on all devices, it should be at least 180 pixels wide by 180 pixels tall. Facebook will automatically change it to square and give you the option to zoom in or out.

Your cover image should be a landscape high quality shot that ideally shows you practising or teaching yoga or meditation. The size should be 828 wide x 315 pixels tall. Make sure you test how your cover image looks on mobile devices as only the centre 563 x 315px portion of the image appears on mobile.

Canva is a super helpful tool for Facebook cover photos as it comes with several premade templates where you can upload your own image to use as the background and edit the text to say whatever you’d like.

Choose the best images you have and don’t let your images stop you from creating your page!

You can always update the images once you have your page set up.

Short description for your Facebook Yoga Business Page:

Write a concise 150 character long description of you to add to your page. Who you are, what you teach and where you teach.

This will work in search results and introduce you to new students so think about keywords to describe your offering.

2. Sign up for a Facebook Yoga Business page

Open Facebook, go to Pages and click on Create a Page facebook.com/pages/create

You will be presented with six business categories to choose from. For a yoga teacher, you can either select ‘Company, Organisation or Institution’ or ‘Artist, band or public figure’.

For a yoga studio, you’ll want to select ‘Local Business or Place’.

Select a more specific category from the drop-down menu e.g. Health/Beauty, Coach (you can change it to teacher further along the process), Yoga Studio

3. Add your profile and cover images

Follow the instructions to add your profile and cover images. Super easy, simply upload from your computer.

Make any adjustments to the images by clicking on the image and selecting ‘Edit Thumbnail’. You can drag to reposition or zoom in or out.

Here’s a pro tip: When you upload a cover photo to your page, the photo is added as an update to your timeline. If you edit the description of the photo, you can add a message to the update. Click on the photo to open up the photo viewer, and you’ll notice a link that says “Add a description.”

You can add description, tags, location, and date to your photo. Once you’ve finished, the update to your timeline will be changed to reflect your edits.

4. Complete your business details

On the left side of your page you’ll see a few options under your profile image – Home, Services, Reviews and ‘See More’. Click on ‘See More’ and click on ‘About’.

Here you can add your description, contact details, make any changes to your name and change the category from Coach to Teacher.

You have the option to choose a custom vanity URL for your page, i.e. facebook.com/yourbrandname.

(Facebook will ask that you reach 25 fans first before you can unlock a custom Facebook URL)

5. Choose Settings

Go to Settings in the top right corner of your page and you will be presented with a range of options for your page. Some of the settings you might like to look at are:

Messaging: Set up an auto-responder to automatically answer everyone who sends you a message via your Facebook business page. All you need to do is activate ‘response assistant’ and then edit the message that people will receive.

Page roles: You can add other people to your page which is useful if you’re running a studio and want to assign responsibilities to other team members. You can type in the name of any Facebook friend or a person who has liked your page. Alternatively, you can type in an email address associated with a Facebook account.

Preferred Page audience: If you teach yoga to older people in London, you should define this audience by selecting London and the ages ranges of your audience. This doesn’t mean that people outside of the preferred page audience won’t be able to like your page, but that it’s more likely to be seen by those who are in your targeting.

Call-to-Action Button: Facebook allows you to set up a button on your page for people to take action. Check out the pages of well-known yoga teachers for ideas. A great one is to get people to sign up for your email newsletter.

6. Create your first post!

Congrats! You’ve successfully set up your page and now it’s time to create your first post – a welcome message for your soon-to-be fans.

At the top of your timeline, you’ll see the status box, where it says “Write something…” Type in the text you want to add. Click the camera icon to add an image and then click Post.

The key to a successful business page is to offer inspiring and motivating content that’s truly authentic. So share YOU and make a personal connection with your audience to increase familiarity and trust, which helps to build loyalty.

You want to ensure your posts are engaging and keep your audience interested in what you have to say and share. You should avoid sending non stop updates about your classes. Instead, keep your audience interested and engaged by asking questions, posting beautiful photos, and sharing the ways that yoga can improve health and well-being.

Make sure you interact with your audience and respond to any comments.

One of the best ways to build rapport with your audience is through live video. The Facebook Live service is built into Facebook pages and is completely free to use. Your videos can also be saved and edited later. The creative possibilities are endless.

Some other ideas for posts:

Class descriptions: If you teach different styles of yoga, tell your audience about these styles every once in a while.

Events: If you run workshops and events, you can set up an event on Facebook which links to your booking page. Your event will automatically post on your Facebook page.

Blog Posts: Your Facebook page is a great place to share links to your blog posts on your website. If you’re not blogging yet, go and read: 7 Reasons Why Yoga Teachers Should Start Blogging.

Generally, Facebook users tend to prefer to stay on Facebook, so your headline, image, and excerpt need to be want to click and jump to your

7. Invite your Friends!

You are now ready to invite your friends and network to like your page and get those first few fans!

You should like your page from your personal profile and then ‘Share’ your page on your timeline by clicking on ‘Share’ under the cover image.

Next click on the three dots to the right of ‘Share’ and select ‘Invite Friends’.

A new window will open showing a list of all your current friends on Facebook. Click the Invite button next to any friends who are interested in yoga. Voila!