A Facebook Page is a business’s public profile on Facebook: the place that holds its name, contact details, posts, reviews and messages. It is also the identity every Facebook ad runs under, so you cannot advertise on Facebook without one, and the Page name and picture appear at the top of every ad shown on Facebook. On Instagram placements, your linked Instagram account is shown instead.
How a Facebook Page works
A Page is created from a personal Facebook profile, but it is a separate thing: customers see the business, not the person who set it up. Pages now use what Meta calls the new Pages experience, which works more like a profile, with people given either full control or partial access to manage it.
For advertising, the Page should be added to your business portfolio, along with your ad account, Instagram account and dataset. Linking Facebook and Instagram there lets one ad run on both apps under the right names. Day-to-day posting, messages and comments are usually handled in Meta Business Suite.
A Page can also collect recommendations from customers, which appear as reviews, and receive messages through Messenger. Both are public signals: people can see your rating and, in many cases, how quickly you usually reply. If you run click-to-message ads, those conversations land in the Page inbox, so someone needs to be watching it.
The Page also has a transparency section showing when it was created, any name changes and the ads it is running. Anyone can see those ads in the Meta Ad Library.
Why it matters for a UK business
When someone sees your ad, a fair number will tap the Page name to check you are real before buying or enquiring. A Page with a proper logo, accurate opening hours, a UK phone number, a website link and some recent posts reassures them. A Page last updated three years ago, with unanswered messages and a stock-photo cover image, undoes the work the ad did.
Ownership is the other issue. Pages are often set up by a former employee, a relative or an old web designer from their personal profile. If that person leaves or loses their own account, the business can lose control of its Page, its reviews and its ability to advertise. Recovering access through Meta is slow and not guaranteed.
Common mistakes
- Having the Page controlled by one person’s personal profile with no backup admin.
- Running two or three duplicate Pages for the same business, splitting followers and reviews.
- Leaving the about section with an old address, a mobile number nobody answers or no website link.
- Ignoring messages, which are visible to customers as slow response times.
- Using a Page name stuffed with keywords (“Best Plumber London Cheap Emergency”), which looks untrustworthy and can break Meta’s naming rules.
How to act on it
Check who has full control of your Page and make sure at least two trusted people inside the business have it, both with two-factor authentication switched on. Claim the Page into your own business portfolio rather than leaving it in an agency’s.
Then update the basics: business name as customers know it, category, address or service area, opening hours, phone in international format, email and website. Merge or close duplicate Pages, and post something useful every so often so the Page looks alive. Getting the Page, portfolio and ad account in order is the first step of Facebook and Instagram ads management when I start with a new client.