Do you have a profile on Facebook? Have you seen those pages circulating around Facebook where your friends can become a fan of authors, movies, books and more? You can create a Facebook page as a way to promote your book or game, too. I’d like to help show you how.

STEP ONE: NAVIGATE — Click on the Create a Facebook Page link. If you have an existing Facebook account, I recommend not logging in to Facebook until the prompt appears.

Please note that as of April 14, 2009, you will have to “verify” your account via an electronic signature. It appears that Facebook is trying to ensure that a live person is behind the page in a profile, so businesses can no longer appear anonymously.

Here is what Facebook is looking for, in their own words from their “Help” section: “The name you enter as your electronic signature should match the name on your account. If you have a business account with no name or profile, or are trying to create an account when you create your Page, please enter your legal first and last name as your electronic signature.”

STEP TWO: CHOOSE YOUR PAGE TYPE — Choose what kind of a Facebook page you want to create. The choices are: Local (For a company or business), Brand or Product (Self-Explanatory) or Artist, Band or Public Figure (Band, Musician, Writer, etc.) for a personal profile. For this example, I’m going to choose the third option.

STEP THREE: NAME YOUR PAGE — If you’ve chosen “Writer,” you’ll want to type in your author name. I don’t have a pen name, so I’m going to create a page for me. Once you’ve put in what name you want to be referred to and searched by, click on the blue “create page” button.

STEP FOUR: LOG IN — Log in to the prompt here, or create your Facebook log in.

STEP FIVE: CUSTOMIZE YOUR PAGE — Now that you’ve created your Facebook page, you have the ability to customize it in a number of different ways, specific to the page type that you’ve chosen. Here are a few of the ways that you can choose to customize your Facebook page.

Add a Picture: The maximum filesize for an image is 4 megabytes. I’ve found that a good picture size to use is 250 pixels wide by 250 pixels tall because there is a lot of white space on the page.

Pull in Your RSS Feed: To pull in your blog or website’s RSS feed to ensure there is current content on your page, you’ll want to click on the “Add a Note” feature. On the right hand side in a small, grey box you’ll see “Notes Settings” where you can import your blog.

You will see your full expanded posts in the “preview,” but this is not how the RSS feed will show up in your Facebook page. Once you confirm the import at the bottom of the page, your RSS feed will display in the “Notes” box on a per post, per title basis.

Add Information: Underneath your profile picture is a place to add information about you, your brand or your product. I recommend adding one or two paragraphs of text written in a style appropriate for people who don’t know anything about you, your company or your product.

Add Video: If you’re playing around with video, I’d like to mention that there is an extra “verification” layer to use that option and the upload is not immediate. One option would be to have a shorter video in the “Video” box, and offer a link to your existing video by posting it on your wall.

Favorite Other Facebook Pages: If you are a company and have a product, you can add your product’s page as a “favorite” and vice versa. This is a good way to help your customers and fans become familiar with what you’re offering.

Rearrange Content: You may be looking at your page wondering where you can find photos or videos to add. If you don’t have content for every box, I recommend rearranging the elements on your Facebook page so the boxes that you do have content for show up first. I also recommend posting on your wall with a personalized message so the spot doesn’t appear to be empty.

STEP SIX: PUBLISH — After you’ve customized your Facebook page, you have to “publish” the page to make it live.

STEP SEVEN: PUBLICIZE — Now that you have your new Facebook page, you’ll want to publicize it and get “fans.” You can do that either through word-of-mouth advertising, through a Facebook ad or by adding a Facebook badge to your website.

Adding a Facebook Badge: To add a Facebook badge to your website once you’ve created your page, refer to the “Help” section of Facebook. In this series of articles about How to Create a Facebook Badge, you’ll be able to read more about it. If you’re logged in to Facebook, you can also click on create a Facebook badge and follow the customization instructions.

For an example of a recent Facebook page that I had created, take a peek at Musicnotes.com on Facebook. Remember, that getting fans and people to interact on your Facebook page will take time. Regardless, it’s a good idea to know what Facebook promotional tools you have out there not just because this page creation is free — but because Facebook continues to be a popular social media outlet that you may want to consider branching into.

Hope you found this article helpful in your quest to promote you and your work. If you have a Facebook page you’re looking to promote, either send me or post the link in the comments below and I’ll follow up later this week with a list!