As a minimum on Facebook you want to create your own Business Page or ‘Fan Page’ as they are sometimes called. This is separate from your personal Facebook account, where you put up your personal pictures and cat videos (if cat videos are your thing, I’m not judging).

Your Business Page is how you are going to present your Broking business to your friends, clients and also in any advertising you do, which means they are not going to see your holiday photos or cat videos — although you can post these on your Business Page if you think that is relevant to your clients. It doesn’t hurt to show that you are similar to your potential clients and a real person that they can relate to, but in general it’s better to communicate in a way that is of value to them, not all about you and your latest trip overseas.

When creating this business page, I recommend that you use your personal name in the page’s title. When I make them I will do something like ‘John Smith — Mortgage Australia’ or ‘Sally Jones — Super Home Loans’. You should use a professional photo of yourself as the profile photo. This is so that when your friends see a post from your business page they immediately recognise you and don’t see a company brand that they don’t immediately identify, and also so that others who see it see you as a real person they can speak to and who actually knows the stuff they are posting.

So don’t use a company name on its own for your Facebook page and don’t use a logo as your profile photo. If you like, you can use your logo for your cover photo which is what is displayed around your profile photo when people go to your page.

Remember,YOU are your brand, that’s why I wrote a whole chapter about it earlier in this book. Facebook is social media, people are there to talk to (and about) other people – not to an impersonal business.You need to be authentic and approachable, using a style that suits your business.

Then you need to invite your friends to like your page and also invite your clients. Facebook allows you to upload email addresses of your clients. If your client uses that email address for their Facebook login they will get a Facebook notification inviting them to like your page, otherwise they get an email from Facebook with the invitation.

The final step is to post and share regular, relevant articles and content to your Business Page. Then your friends and clients, who have ‘liked’ your page following your invitation, will see these articles in their news feed from time to time. Facebook limits how often your friends see your business page posts and the less frequently they interact with them, the less frequently they are shown. In particular your posts should be educational articles which provide useful information to your clients and present you as the expert, with perhaps a little of sharing current news articles which show you are up with the latest industry happenings.

In my opinion, this is a good way to gently remind your friends of what you do so they come to you when they are ready, without you being pushy. You can also ‘share’ the articles that you posted on your Business Page in your personal Facebook account, which is a stronger way to get them into your friend’s news feeds.