Facebook forms are a great way to quickly and easily collect information or sign-ups from your audience. You can use Facebook forms for contests, lead generation, registrations, orders, or any other purpose where you need users to submit information.
Creating a fillable form on Facebook is free and simple to set up. All you need is a Facebook Page and you can get started making forms right within Facebook. The form responses get collected into a Google Sheets spreadsheet so you can view and manage the submissions.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk through everything you need to know to create effective Facebook forms for your business or organization.
Benefits of Using Facebook Forms
Here are some of the top benefits of using Facebook forms:
- Easy to create – It only takes a few minutes to make a form right within Facebook. No special tools or coding required.
- Mobile friendly – Facebook forms work great on mobile so you can collect submissions on-the-go.
- Trust and reach – People are comfortable submitting information via Facebook so you can get higher response rates.
- Collects submissions into spreadsheet – Form responses feed into a Google Sheet for easy exporting and analyzing.
- Customizable – You can customize the look and fields to match your branding.
- Free – Facebook forms are 100% free to create and use.
Facebook forms are perfect for quickly collecting RSVPs, contact information, orders, or any data you need from your audience. The built-in integration with Google Sheets makes gathering and managing the submissions easy.
Step 1 – Create a Facebook Page
To get started with Facebook forms, you first need to have a Facebook Page for your business or organization. If you don’t already have one, here’s how to create a Facebook Page:
- Go to facebook.com and log into your personal Facebook account.
- Click on the down arrow in the top right and select Create Page.
- Choose the category that best fits your business and click Get Started.
- Enter your Page Name, add a description, upload a profile picture and cover photo.
- Click Continue and follow the rest of the on-screening prompts to set up your new Page.
Once you have a Facebook Page created, you can then start building forms from right within that Page.
Step 2 – Access Facebook Forms
Facebook Forms is accessed directly from your Facebook Page:
- Go to your Facebook Page
- Click More in the left side menu
- Select Forms
This will open up the Forms dashboard where you can create new forms or manage existing ones.
Step 3 – Set Up a New Form
Let’s go through how to set up a brand new Facebook form:
- Click the blue + Create Form button
- Enter your form name – This is internal so name it something you’ll recognize
- Select a Form Destination – Choose Google Sheets which will save all submissions into a connected Google Sheet spreadsheet
- Authorize Facebook to access your Google account and pick which Google Sheet document you want the form to save into
- Click Create Form
You now have a blank form set up that’s ready for you to add fields and customize.
Step 4 – Add Form Fields
The fields you add to your Facebook form will depend on what type of information you need to collect. Here are some common form field types you can add:
- Short Answer – For text, names, emails, etc.
- Paragraph – For longer open-ended text responses
- Multiple Choice – For selectable options like radio buttons or checkboxes
- Drop down – For a selectable dropdown menu
- Date – For selecting a date
- File upload – For uploading documents, images, etc.
To add a field to your form:
- Click Add Question
- Select the field type
- Enter the question text
- Customize the options for that field type
- Click Save
Add all the necessary fields you need in your Facebook form. You can rearrange the order of the fields by dragging and dropping them.
Step 5 – Customize the Form
Once you’ve added all the required fields, you can further customize your Facebook form:
- Add form description – Add some intro text to provide context before people start filling out the fields.
- Legal disclaimer – You can add a terms, conditions or legal disclaimer that people have to agree to before submitting the form.
- Submission message – Customize the text people see after submitting the form.
- Error message – Add a custom message if there is an error submitting the form.
- Settings – Adjust settings like requiring log-in to submit, posting a thank you video, and choosing a thumbnail image for your form.
Take advantage of these options to create a customized form flow for your audience.
Step 6 – Publish and Share the Form
Once your form is complete, click Publish Form in the upper right corner to make it live.
You will get a direct form URL that you can share wherever you need people to fill out the form:
- Share the link in a Facebook post or ad.
- Embed it on your website with Facebook’s embedded code.
- Send the link in email newsletters.
- Promote the form URL in other marketing channels.
Driving traffic to the form URL is key to getting submissions. Consider running Facebook Ads targeted to your audience to increase form completions.
Step 7 – Manage Form Submissions
As people start submitting your Facebook form, all the responses will automatically be collected into the connected Google Sheet you set up.
You can then view, analyze, and manage the form data all from within the Google Sheet document.
Some ways to work with the form submissions:
- Add columns in the sheet to calculate metrics like conversion rate.
- Sort, filter, and segment the data to pull insights.
- Set up formulas to combine data from multiple fields.
- Build charts and graphs for easy analysis.
- Export the data as a CSV file to work with in other programs.
- Use Google Apps Scripts to automatically populate calendars, send emails, or post submissions to other apps with Zapier.
The Google Sheet integration makes getting value from your Facebook form data easy.
Creating Advanced Facebook Forms
While the basic Facebook forms are easy to set up, they can have limited functionality for certain use cases. Some limitations include:
- Cannot conditionally show or require fields based on previous answers
- No option for multi-page forms
- Limited options for rich formatting and layouts
- No support for payments or signatures
For more advanced forms, you may want to consider using a dedicated form builder tool like:
- Google Forms
- SurveyMonkey
- Wufoo
- JotForm
- Typeform
- Formstack
- Formsite
These tools allow creating more complex forms with conditionals, multi-page flows, payments, scheduling, and much more. Most also integrate directly with Facebook for lead generation.
So while the built-in Facebook forms are great for basic uses, advanced form builders provide more functionality for complex forms.
Top Types of Facebook Forms
Facebook forms are versatile and can support many different use cases. Here are some of the most popular ways brands use Facebook forms:
Lead Generation Forms
Collect contact information like emails and phone numbers with Facebook lead gen forms. You can then follow up with newsletters, calls, and special offers.
Event Registrations
Have people RSVP or purchase tickets for upcoming events or webinars with Facebook forms.
Surveys and Polls
Survey your audience to get feedback, opinions, and insights with polls and survey forms.
Contests and Giveaways
Run contests, sweepstakes and giveaways by having people enter with a Facebook form. Easily collect entries and pick random winners.
Quizzes and Assessments
Engage your audience while capturing lead data with fun quizzes and assessments built into Facebook forms.
Orders and Bookings
Allow customers to book appointments or place orders right within a Facebook form.
Feedback and Support
Improve products and services by having customers submit reviews, feedback, and support requests via forms.
Newsletter Signups
Grow your email list by promoting newsletter signup forms to your Facebook followers.
Petitions and Volunteer Signups
Rally people around causes by having them add their names and information to petitions or volunteer signup lists.
Job Applications
Post job openings and allow interested candidates to submit applications through Facebook forms.
The possibilities are endless. Essentially any situation where you need to collect information from people can be adapted into a Facebook form. Start brainstorming ideas for how you can use forms to better engage your audience and grow your business.
Tips for Creating Effective Facebook Forms
Here are some tips to create effective Facebook forms that maximize conversions:
- Use a strong call-to-action – Tell people exactly what to do, like “Sign up now”.
- Keep forms short – Long forms have lower completion rates. Only include essential fields.
- Personalize with merge fields – Insert names, cities, interests to make forms more conversational.
- Add incentives – Give discounts, prizes, or free content for completing the form.
- Follow up quickly – Contact form submitters within 24 hours when possible.
- Test different headlines – Try different headlines to see which gets more submissions.
- Use videos and images – Make forms more visual and engaging with media.
- Segment your audience – Send each segment forms tailored to their needs.
- Monitor and optimize – Track conversion rates and tweak forms to improve.
Taking a strategic approach to your Facebook forms will drive higher quality leads and conversions. Test different messages, formats, and follow up cadences to see what resonates best with your audience.
Facebook Forms vs. Google Forms
So should you use the built-in Facebook forms or Google forms? Here’s a look at how they compare:
Facebook Forms
- Super easy to set up
- Seamlessly integrated with Facebook
- Instantly collect leads on Facebook
- Feed submissions into Google Sheets
- Fairly limited in functionality
- Cannot create advanced conditional logic
Google Forms
- More powerful form building features
- Supports complex multi-page forms
- Additional response types like grid, scales, etc.
- Can create conditional branching logic
- Collect payments with Google Forms add-ons
- Not integrated natively with Facebook
So Facebook forms are great for super simple lead capture while Google forms provide more advanced options. Many businesses actually use both – starting the lead capture process on Facebook with a basic form, then directing respondents to a Google form for more details.
Conclusion
Facebook forms provide an easy yet powerful way to quickly collect information and engage your audience on Facebook.
The built-in integration with Google Sheets gives you access to all the submission data for follow up and analysis.
While basic Facebook forms work great for simple lead generation, use dedicated form builders like Google Forms if you need advanced functionality like payments and complex logic.
Focus on creating forms optimized for conversions by keeping them short, adding incentives and personalization, and testing different variants.
Used strategically, Facebook forms can become a invaluable asset to grow your email list, get feedback, promote events, and drive conversions from your Facebook followers.