When fifth-grader Kane Swift had to do a science project, he decided to help raise funds for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure campaign.

So he set up a Facebook fan page with the help of his parents. In just one week, he got more than 1,200 fans and raised $400!

“I can understand using Facebook for a fifth-grade science project,” I hear you saying. “But how do I use Facebook to market my business? I keep hearing that I should include social media in my marketing campaigns, but I don’t have a clue how to do that.”

You’ll be happy to hear that your clueless days are over.

A recent Nielsen report showed people spend 7 hours a month on Facebook, but only 2 hours a month on Google, Yahoo, AOL, and MSN.  That’s a huge opportunity.

One of the biggest names in Facebook marketing has written a Facebook marketing textbook just for you. Mari Smith partnered with Chris Treadaway to write Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day.

Yes! It’s another “Hour a Day” book. So you know you’ll be getting the equivalent of a college semester’s training in the privacy of your own home, at your own pace.

Facebook is every marketer’s dream, because in no other medium can you:

• Show your ad to 1,000 people for only 20 cents. Not 20 cents apiece, 20 cents total.
• Create lifelong fans of your business for only 27 cents per fan.
• Target divorced male executives between the ages of 40 and 55 who have an MBA from Harvard Business School and work at specific companies in Chicago.

Targeting Customers With Surgical Precision

You can target Facebook members by location, age, sex, education, language and even by their workplace. So you could target your ad to married men over 40 with a college degree who work for a particular company. You can throw in a couple of keywords that members list in their profiles to get even more specific.

And Facebook asks its members for a LOT of information! Not only gender, birth date and location, but also favorite TV shows, college major and even religious and political views!

“Facebook advertising is perhaps one of the most effective and inexpensive ways available to target specific people based on profile data that they have entered voluntarily,” write Smith and Treadaway.

But Facebook isn’t just about ads. And that’s just as well, because Facebook ads are the same, interruptive, “in-your-face” form of traditional advertising in a new medium. Many Facebook members may just ignore them.

“Although Facebook’s pay-per-click model of advertising offers competitive rates… Facebook users have been consistently obstinate when it comes to responding to advertising on its profile pages,” write Smith and Treadaway. “As an advertiser/marketer, Facebook has an extremely large, desirable audience that [has] refused to click ads.”

“Facebook members are typically not in the habit of clicking on ads,” say Paul Dunay and Richard Krueger in Facebook Marketing for Dummies. “They are on Facebook for social purposes, as opposed to browsing and discovery.”

Facebook Is More Than Just Ads

Fortunately, there’s a lot more you can do on Facebook than just running ad campaigns. But only if you follow the primary rule of social media marketing: Find your evangelists and then give them everything they need to help you market your business for free.

Before you even begin a social media marketing campaign, you need to answer the following questions:

• What is the goal of your social media campaign? Increased sales? Better customer service?
• How will you measure success? What metrics will you use?
• Do company executives view social media as a risk or an opportunity?
• Do you have employees who are interested in helping with the campaign?
• Can you provide enough interesting content on a regular basis to attract potential customers and keep them engaged?

And your company executives will have to answer the following questions:

• Should you promote your brand, your company or your products/services?
• Will you need a policy governing what information can be shared on social media?
• Will every update have to be approved in advance? By whom?
• Will you communicate directly with customers via social media?
• Will you manage the project internally or outsource it?

And this will be a team effort. No single person has all the skills necessary to run a large corporate social media marketing campaign. And the leader of the team has to be “one part visionary, one part marketer, and one part politician,” according to Smith and Treadaway.

Here are some Facebook metrics you can track:

• Number of new Facebook fans
• Number of wall updates/posts
• Number of likes and comments
• Number of customer interactions
• Amount of money spent on advertising
• Advertising cost per fan

This is just a taste of what you will find in Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day. The authors cover the gamut of Facebook marketing, beginning with Facebook basics and working through to Facebook analytics, Facebook Connect, and Facebook apps. They end the book with interviews from six industry experts who predict how Facebook may evolve.

If your prospective customers are spending more time on Facebook than any other site, shouldn’t you be there too?

Social Media Examiner gives this book a 5-star rating. Be sure to grab a copy if you want to master Facebook with only an hour a day.

Have you read the book?  Do you think Facebook will change the way businesses connect with customers? Please leave your comment in the box below.

What’s more important? The quantity of your Twitter following or the depth of your relationships with your followers?

The answer is BOTH! Having hundreds of thousands of followers must be nice. But we all know that the depth of the relationships you maintain with your tweeple is paramount.

This article will reveal five great Twitter tools that will help you find and engage with quality Twitter followers.

Notice I mentioned “depth.” However, there must be another side to this coin. The reach. And if you want to have “reach” on Twitter (getting 10+ retweets, for example) on regular basis, chances are you will need a large number of followers.

This article will focus on getting you those numbers.

Specifically, I want to explore how to generate new followers, how to manage your newly found follower surplus and how to turn those shallow relationships into deeper ones using the top 5 most indispensable Twitter tools.

#1: Blast Follow

Editors note: This tool, if abused, will get you temporarily banned from Twitter.  Do not follow large groups (1000 or more) or multiple hash tags at once.  We have received reports from readers that they were banned because they “over did” this tool.

Blast Follow is indispensable for finding people in your niche (and beyond) and auto-following them with a single click.

How does this help YOU gain more followers? Because of the Law of Reciprocity.

Take advantage of Twitter's "Law of Reciprocity" nature and blast follow hundreds of tweeple with a single click and get followed in kind.

The law of reciprocity is a basic mammalian urge. When apes groom each other, they are engaging in the Law of Reciprocity. In fact, if you take a trip to your local zoo, you will notice that the most social apes are the best-groomed as well.

I will go as far as to say that the reason Twitter is so popular is because the human urge to reciprocate is such a strong driving force behind our actions.

Twitter is a Law of Reciprocity platform. You follow me; it’s only fair that I follow you back.

Most social media experts (Chris Brogan , Guy Kawasaki) recommend a mutual-follow policy.

Note: Chris has changed his own policy due to spam, but the basic idea for the rest of us still stands.

Here is a nifty list of Twitter superstars who WILL follow you back.

#2: Tweepi

Tweepi allows you to unfollow those who do not reciprocate.

Easily shake off the deadbeats. Tweepi enables you to unfollow those who do not follow you back, 40 deadbeats at a time.

The only thing I would add is to be careful not to unfollow someone you would prefer to continue to follow.

Why would you want to follow someone who doesn’t follow you back? One reason could be that their tweets are super-interesting.

The overall strategy for using Blast Follow and Tweepi is to blast follow 100-200 people today and give them a week or so to follow back. If they don’t reciprocate, clean them out with Tweepi. Then repeat.

OK. What’s next?

#3: twAitter

I hope that I don’t have to sell you on the notion of maintaining a presence on Twitter. One tool that is indispensable in maintaining a presence is twAitter, which allows you to schedule your tweets in advance.

Now, that’s not all that amazing on its own. Many tools allow you to schedule your tweets. Social Oomph comes to mind.

twAitter will soon be renamed to Gremln; the ability to schedule, rotate and repeat your tweets will remain unchanged.

twAitter is unique in that it allows us to rotate and repeat our tweets. Social Oomph allows for a similar functionality (and a lot more), but it’s a premium service for which you’d have to pay. twAitter, on the other hand, is free.

Why would you want to repeat your tweets?

Twitter is a drive-by platform. Most people login for 10-20 minutes at a time and unless they see your tweet in that time, chances are they will never see it. Unless you repeat yourself.

Don’t abuse this awesome power.

Guy Kawasaki repeats his tweets four times with at least several hours in between. I repeat my tweets every few days but do not limit myself to four.

#4: TweetDeck

Now that you have thousands of followers, you will need to organize them and keep an eye on the really interesting ones. In comes TweetDeck.

TweetDeck gives you the ability to create panels based on your lists, retweet now or later, keep an eye on your fav tweeps and much more.

TweetDeck allows you to create “panels” based on your Twitter lists or others. I have lists/panels for my dog people, social media people, friends, interesting and RT-worthy tweeps, etc. They all get their own list/panel, which makes it really easy to follow their timeline.

Without TweetDeck, this would be an overwhelming and time-consuming prospect.

#5: TweetChat

TweetChat allows you to isolate the conversation based on the hashtag.

This is a two-in-one kind of tool.

In the sea of tweets, it's easy to lose track of your favorite hashtag. TweetChat to the rescue.

It not only helps you generate followers, but it does this by first creating a familiarity and depth before the follow itself occurs. How?

Hashtags (#) and the way they can be used on Twitter are a great big untapped resource for many Twitter residents.

Here’s an example:

If you tune into Twitter every Monday night around 9 pm EST, you might see an excessive appearance of the #dogtalk hashtag.

The #dogtalk crew brings in interesting dog people every week and interviews them about their goings-on. Many folks tune in using TweetChat to follow and participate in the conversation.

If you’ve participated in the conversation and actually contributed in some small way, a funny thing happens.

Other participants see you as interesting and decide to follow you. The right thing to do now is to reciprocate, of course.

Bonus #6: Super-Secret Bonus Twitter Tool

This tool is the best, most important tool of them all. It works in an entirely different way than any other tools we’ve mentioned.

Here’s the big secret. It’s you.

Be useful. Be interesting. Be compelling.

Take this post as an example. Do you think that this post will generate followers for me? Of course it will. A bonus here is that the relationship has started “on the right foot.” I’m a real person (a somewhat rare commodity on Twitter), I have something useful to share (at least I hope it will be useful to you) and hopefully it will compel you to check me out and be my friend on Twitter.

Do you use any of these Twitter tools? Got some to add? Leave us your comments in the box below.

One of the big promises of social media is that literally anyone can become a celebrity now because of cheap and easy access to social media tools. We all have a shot at our 15 megabytes of fame if we can create compelling content.

But what are the implications for businesses that get serious about social media? Are there hidden dangers lurking for companies whose employees are “too good” with social media? This article will explore five benefits and five threats of celebrity employees.

The Employee Celebrity Is Born

Organizations around the world are wisely trying to dive into social media to take advantage of the new opportunities. The promises of “crowdsourcing” ideas and creating “viral” success stories have a huge appeal to companies of all sizes and industries. However, in doing this, companies are also creating something they never anticipated: the employee celebrity.

The Shift to Managing Talent

An employee celebrity is someone in your organization who has a positive reputation apart from or in addition to your corporate brand. Social media allows for great personal branding in addition to corporate branding, so a shift in power and need happens when employees become celebrities and begin to see themselves as talent rather than average employees.

When you’re working with talent, there are inherent benefits and potential landmines. Just ask any coach or owner of a professional sports team. Here are five opportunities and five threats with employee celebrities:

Five Opportunities of Celebrity Employees

#1: A Human Connection

Customers and prospects get to connect with a human they trust at your company who’s genuinely worth giving attention to. As a result, brand awareness, customer service and increased engagement opportunities occur. (Example: Frank Eliason at Comcast, known as @comcastcares on Twitter.)

#2: Enhanced Credibility

Your celebrity employee brings your company credibility it never had or hasn’t had in a long time. (Example: Robert Scoble during his Microsoft days.)

#3: Better Insight

Your celebrity employee knows the heartbeat of your customers and can accurately anticipate reactions to policy changes, new products or brand adjustments. (Example: Lynsay Caylor at Pilot Travel Centers listens, learns, reports and acts because of their Facebook page.)

#4: Enhanced Influence

Your celebrity employee has the attention and trust of interested and potential customers. These are the first people likely to spend money with your company. All they have to do is talk about it and watch the fans run with it. (Example: Steve Jobs is the ultimate celebrity employee.)

#5: Crisis Management

Your celebrity employee can set the record straight if a PR crisis occurs because the platform is already in place and trust exists between the employee and his or her following. (Example: Steve Rubel has addressed specific situations when his employer, Edelman PR, came under fire.)

Five Threats of Celebrity Employees

#1: The Power Player

Your celebrity employee develops a following that is more loyal to him or her than to your brand, products or services and attempts to wield that power to make changes the company doesn’t want to make. The celebrity knows he or she has influence with customers and they’re willing to use it for personal benefits rather than corporate benefits.

#2: The Gunslinger

Your employee celebrity angers customers with an idea, opinion or mistake that then reflects badly on the company and creates a PR crisis. Often this kind of celebrity employee will apologize but also relishes the additional attention that comes from the controversy.

In 2009, James Andrews, an employee for Ketchum PR, was flying into Memphis to do a presentation to their client, FedEx. After he arrived in Memphis to go to FedEx headquarters, he tweeted that “he would die if he had to live here“.

The people at FedEx saw it and called him out on it. Then the whole thing went public and Ketchum PR had its own PR situation. Ironically enough, Andrews was going to talk to FedEx about the power of social media.

#3: The Chatterbox

Your celebrity employee accidentally or unknowingly reveals secret corporate information and your company has to decide how to deal with the information leak. The tendency will be for the leadership or employee celebrity him- or herself to pull back from the public discussion after a situation like this, but you want to deal with it proactively and likely publicly through the same means that caused the trouble in the first place.

#4: The Free Agent

Your celebrity employee decides to leave the company for a new job and take his or her following along. The opportunity for the company is to decide if they did everything they could to retain the employee. This also supports the idea of getting more people in the company involved so if one person leaves, you haven’t lost an entire segment of your conversations.

#5: The Diva

Celebrity employees may get so focused on celebrity status that they’re difficult to work with or merely uninterested in the normal work because they’re so focused on growing their tribe. Unfortunately, this person has seen your company as a stepping-stone to greater things for a long time. Now it’s just more obvious. Despite the potential frustration, don’t burn bridges here because you might have a relationship with a rising star.

The Adjusted Reward System

The thing that makes celebrity employees unique within the structure of your company is that previously the employee’s primary rewards were a paycheck, occasional encouragement, and the hope for a promotion someday.

Now, however, they can create a following that cares more about them than their own manager probably does. The company keeps on supplying the paycheck and the employee keeps on fulfilling his or her role, but the attention from the customers creates a reward all its own.

You Need Each Other More Than You Think

The irony in most cases is that the employee attained “celebrity” status in large part because of the company he or she worked for. The company name backing them gave immediate authority to the public.

The employee’s own abilities, however, took the company name and endowed authority to the level that made it truly beneficial to both the company and the employee. They need each other more than they think they do.

The pressure social media and employee celebrities bring to the workplace is mostly positive. It changes the dynamic from “human resources” to “talent management” and that’s really a good thing for everyone.

Businesses will get better people, employees will be better people, and customers reap the benefits from the whole arrangement. Employee celebrities will be viewed as a threat in some companies, but they’ll be rock stars in other companies. Social media gives every organization yet one more thing to consider for the future of their business.

So, do the benefits outweigh the threats? Does your business have a celebrity employee? Let us know what you think in the comment box below.

Have you ever wondered how mega-corporations manage their social media initiatives?  Keep reading for a fascinating inside look at Intel Corporation’s sophisticated social media initiatives.

I interviewed Ekaterina Walter, a social media strategist at Intel to better understand how the company is using Facebook.

For the last two years, Ekaterina has been part of Intel’s Social Media Center of Excellence.  In addition to developing social media policy for their 80,000 employees, the center is also responsible for strategy, training and monitoring.  Ekaterina manages Intel’s Facebook page.

During this interview, you’ll gain insight into how large corporations manage their social media activities and discover some of the innovative ways that Intel is using Facebook.

Mike: Let’s talk about Intel’s Facebook page.  You have more than 115,000 fans on your page.  Would you share whom you’re targeting and how Intel is using Facebook?

Ekaterina: We created a Facebook page to provide a place for folks to talk about technology and, of course, Intel products.  The people that were immediately interested in dialoguing with us were the tech-setters—the ones building their own systems.  These were tech “geeks” in the best sense of the word.

Most of our growth is organic.  In the beginning, it was about 3% to 4% a month.  Then we decided to get more serious about engaging, posting more interesting content, answering questions and just posting more often.

We started seeing about a 10% to 12% monthly growth.  This shows you how important the right type of engagement is for growing a fan base.

Intel's Facebook page contains fun videos and engaging discussion.

Now we’re exploring ways to bring more of a mainstream audience to our page and add content that will keep them interested and be a little bit less techie.

Mike: You were experiencing a 10% to 12% growth once you started implementing some of these tactics and strategies.  You mean your numbers of fans were growing by that much?

Ekaterina: Absolutely, yes.

Mike: In the beginning, you were targeting tech-setters or “geeks.”  Were you trying to target the people working inside of the IT centers in corporations, or were these the people at home just building their own computers?  Whom do you think you were going after in the beginning?

Ekaterina: Quite honestly, if you look back 20 or 30 years ago, we have been talking to folks in computer clubs. It has not only been folks who work for bigger companies who are now bigger customers that we sell the ingredients to, but also folks who do their own build – smaller mom-and-pop shops that build a system and then sell it.  And then there’s the totally 100% geeks who sit in their basement and build their servers, build desktop systems and build laptops, etc.

Knowing that tech-setters are setting a trend and really being considered more as unofficial experts in the field, they’ve always worked for us as the number-one audience to go after.

As times change and we embraced social media, instead of going to computer clubs and reaching 20, 30 or 50 people at a time, we could reach thousands and thousands of people on Facebook. And by using other tools like Twitter and blogging, etc., we’re looking at reaching more of a mainstream audience.

Mike: Let’s talk about your Facebook wall strategy. Can you share a little bit about what kinds of content you post on your wall and how the brand has benefitted from what you’ve been doing?

Ekaterina: Nowadays it’s all about news feed optimization.  It’s almost becoming the equivalent of SEO for Facebook.

For those folks who are not really familiar, news feeds display the most popular stories on Facebook. According to Facebook, 0.02% of stories actually make it to the news feed, which is rather scary if you look at it as a marketer.

You want to be seen and heard. However, if your status updates are not getting into people’s news feeds, you might just as well not send them.

There’s a unique amplification effect that Facebook has, where if your friends see it, their friends might also see it, especially if you comment or engage on the brand’s wall.  Or if you “like” a brand, it’s also being seen by all of your friends.

Basically, you want your fans to see it, but more importantly, you want them to engage with you. Because of the news feed algorithm and the engagement they call fan growth, the higher the engagement with you (which are likes, comments, etc.), the more likely it is that your page will be picked up by the Facebook algorithm and make it into the news feed.

We try to keep all content interesting and fresh.  Way back, I asked our fans, “What do you want to see on our wall?  What kinds of updates do you want to see?”

They told us they want to stay on top of technical news.  They want to be the first to know about Intel products that are coming out and what we were up to in general.

They also liked the fact that they can chat with their fellow geeks and ask them for all kinds of advice about how build their own system.

It is important to learn our fans’ likes and dislikes.  Either it’s based on their reactions to particular posts or the polls that we run.  We alter our content strategy accordingly.

Another thing is we monitor engagement spikes and track “aha” moments. Sometimes you would be surprised at what type of content your fans respond most to.

Intel shows a fun side with holiday wishes.

The other thing is we try to be human by sending best wishes to our fans during holidays or asking them what their favorite holiday tradition is, which is quite often no different from how you would talk to your friends. That garners a lot of engagement and positive comments. Something like saying a simple “thank you” when they pay you a compliment or tell you how much they love your product is also extremely important. It’s anything that encourages and continues the dialogue.

Our organic monthly growth more than tripled ever since we really looked at our Facebook engagement strategy seriously, so we’re definitely reaping the benefits and helping continue that two-way dialogue.

Mike: If you had to give one or two of your best engagement tips, what would they be?

Ekaterina: It’s all about trial and error and learning what works for your audience.  An important thing to remember is that what works for some might not necessarily be the right thing for you, so you really need to try to play with it.

My favorite tip is to NOT automate your content.  At first we said, “We have several blogs that have awesome information that we’re providing.  Why don’t we just tie it to our Facebook page and feed that as an automated status update?  Then in between we’ll throw in some customized updates.”

It did not work.  To make it work, you need a good editorial calendar and editorial strategy.  At times, we would have several updates a day and some days we didn’t have any updates.  It was difficult to coordinate this many bloggers.  In some instances, we would have updates that would be hidden just because there were six in a row.

The other bad thing about automated content is the fact that the news feed doesn’t really pick it up.  So it’s not making it to people’s news feeds.  That is very important to remember.

First of all, when the update is customized, people comment on it much more.

The other thing is you can ask questions. You can post an announcement, post videos and ask people, “What do you think?” It really motivates them to be engaged and to answer. If you don’t ask, they would probably comment, but the engagement is not going to be as big.

Videos are a regular part of Intel's Facebook wall strategy.

There is another one of my favorites that I notice not a lot of people know about. Video is your secret weapon. I know everybody says that; however, not only do news feed algorithms prefer media like video and photos and favor them, there is another feature that has just been announced the end of last year, and for some reason it was just really quiet and not a lot of people picked it up.

If you upload a raw video file, not just linked from YouTube but uploaded on Facebook, and your fans share it with their friends, when somebody who’s not a fan or liker of your Facebook page actually watches the video, there is a sweet little thing—a button that pops up on the upper-left corner of the video that invites you to basically like the page, or in the old terms, to become a fan of the page. That is the fastest way for folks to just click on it and become a fan.

It’s a really outstanding call to action, and so I do encourage folks to upload raw files versus just linking to YouTube, which is the easiest thing to do. However, it’s not as effective for your engagement strategy.

Mike: You have a cool little tab called “Tech Therapy” currently on your Facebook page starring Dr. Lemmy Halpman.  These are really cool little videos, funny little videos actually, of people in technology therapy sessions.  Share a little on the strategy behind these videos.

Ekaterina: This program was originally created in Australia.   We decided to feature them on our main Facebook page.

Dr. Lemmy Halpman discusses dysfunctional relationships between patients and their PCs in funny videos.

Lemmy Halpman came about by the Australian team.  It has been popular.

The concept is to talk to people about what makes their computing great and what blockages are in the way of their attaining that true computing happiness.  It shows the benefits of how many things you can do differently.  Faster processing power and less wait, etc., are among them.

Mike: You’re a big brand, so why come up with videos like that?  What’s the underlying strategy?

Ekaterina: In a fun and easy way it tells a story of people’s pain points and tells a story of a product.  It really marries what your needs might be with what the product has to offer.  It’s more of a demand-generation type of program and strategy, but I think in a very subtle way where you don’t just say, “Here’s a system.  Go buy it.”

Mike: Talk to me about contests.  Do you run them only on Facebook?  Do you have Twitter components?  How have your contests and promotions helped your brand?

Intel runs regular contests on its Facebook page.

Ekaterina: We do promote through Twitter, but we try not to really think short-term.  We try to integrate in our current properties.  Every time we drive folks to a property, we want them to stay, and we want that property to exist long-term so we continue building investment into that.  Of course we do struggle with the fragmentation, but we’re working on solving it.

Contests are great at increasing buzz.  Every time we run one, the traffic to the page and our viewership probably increases 500%.

Mike: How do you drive people to learn about your contests on Facebook?

Ekaterina: The wall is effective because we do have a highly engaged audience, and Twitter has been effective.

Mike: Let’s talk about inside Intel.  How are you organized when it comes to social media?  Is it all managed through your Center of Excellence or do you have different units doing their own thing?

Ekaterina: We started with a lot of grassroots.  We’ve been doing social media for years.  We started with blogs way back in 2004.  We started to learn from the grassroots and tried to understand the social media space better.

A few years ago our corporate marketing VP said it was time we got organized and educated on social media.  We shifted some of our budget into digital.  After the social media guidelines, we created the Digital IQ training program that educated over 5,000 of our marketing employees on social media.

We created a university-like program that’s been going on for the past couple of years.  Then we decided we really need a function that would help enable the rest of the company.  That’s how our central team, the Social Media Center of Excellence, came to exist.

Mike: What would be the one single piece of advice you would give one of your peers who’s at a corporation that’s just now getting underway with social media marketing?

Ekaterina: You want to tell them so much, that one is hard.

If I’d say one thing, it’s don’t let the opportunity to engage with your customers slip by just because you’re afraid of potential negative reactions or comments.

I actually talked to Doug Frisbie, a Toyota national marketing manager, when he took over right before their crisis.  He said, “The price of inactivity is greater than the risks of anything we’d be doing in social media,” and it is absolutely true.

Mike: That’s a really solid piece of advice. If people want to learn more about what Intel is doing with social media, where should they go?

Ekaterina: There’s Facebook.com/intel, Twitter.com/intel, YourTube.com/intel, then, of course, Intel.com.  Our blog is at Blogs.intel.com.

Mike: I want to thank you so much for taking some time out today and sharing a lot of your great insight with us.  You were spectacular.

Ekaterina: Thank you so much for having me, Mike. It was great fun.

Listen to the full interview below to learn how Intel manages its Twitter accounts, monitors social media and mobile marketing.

What do you think about Intel’s Facebook page and general social media activities? Leave your comment below.

If you build a Facebook Page, will fans come? This is the great hope for many businesses. However, fans do not magically appear from the Facebook mist.

People must be lured to your fan page. And there are some good and bad ways to go about doing this. In this article, I’ll share a big myth and 21 ways to drive more fans to your Facebook fan page. (Though Facebook recently changed the “Become A Fan” button to the new, omnipresent “Like” button – and a fan page is called a “Business Page” or “Facebook Page” – we can still call them fan pages and people who join are fans!)

The Big Myth

There’s a great myth that once you create a Facebook fan page for your business, the first thing you should do to get fans is invite ALL your friends from your personal profile using the “Suggest to Friends” feature.

Unfortunately, this strategy may not be that effective and can, in fact, often backfire. I have seen many industry gurus complain that when they decline a fan page request, it’s frustrating to continue to be asked again and again.

There are several reasons not to use the Suggest to Friends feature:

• Facebook users can only like up to 500 pages and may wish to be selective. (Though I have seen it’s possible to go over this limit).
• Fan page suggestions may often build up, unnoticed. (At last count, I have 593 overlooked fan page suggestions and am already a fan of 500!)
• To aggressively pursue all your friends to join your fan page – for no apparent incentive – is counterintuitive to the nature of social media.

So, the good news is there are many ways to promote your fan page and proactively increase your fan base without bugging all your current Facebook friends, and also by thinking wider than just Facebook.

Here are 21 ways to get more fans for your Facebook fan page:

#1: Embed Widgets on Your Website

Select from a number of the new Facebook Social Plugins and place them on your website and blog. The Fan Box widget is now the Like Box and it works well to display your current fan page stream and a selection of fans - see screenshot below with Whole Foods Market Facebook Like Box. I would recommend adding a title above the box encouraging visitors to your site/blog to click the “Like” button (which makes them a Facebook fan).

Whole Foods Market Facebook Like Box.

You might also consider the Live Stream widget for more advanced uses, particularly on an FBML custom tab of your fan page itself. The Live Stream widget allows Facebook users to add their comments to a live event, for example, and that activity pushes out into their stream.

#2: Invite Your Email and Ezine Subscribers

Assuming you have an opt-in email list, definitely send out an invitation to your subscribers via email (several times, over time) letting them know about your fan page and encouraging them to join. Ideally, provide them with a description of the page and an incentive to join.

Be sure to have the Facebook logo/badge appear in your HTML newsletters. Instead of the usual “Join our Fan Page,” say something creative like “Write on our Facebook wall,” or “Join our Facebook community,” or “Come add your photo to our Facebook group” (where “group” is actually your fan page). Users have to be a fan in order to interact with your fan page in this way.

#3: Add to Your Email Signature Block

Instead of promoting your Facebook personal profile (if you do), include a link to your fan page in every email you send out. If you use web-based email, check out the Wisestamp signature addon.

#4: Make a Compelling Welcome Video

Create an attractive landing tab (canvas page) with a video that explains exactly a) what your fan page is about, b) who it’s for and c) why they should become members.  The result: you’ll increase your conversion rate from visitors to fans. One of my favorite fan page welcome videos is by Steve Spangler, the Science Guy! After watching his video, you can’t help but want to join!

(By the way, with the new Facebook changes, if your custom welcome tab and video talk about clicking the “Become A Fan” button, you may want to change the wording to “click the Like button” now).

#5: Use Facebook Apps

I recently tested a new live video-streaming app called Vpype. The app adds a tab to your fan page called “Shows” and when you broadcast as your fan page, everyone can view by default. (You can also broadcast as your personal profile and selectively invite friends/friend lists). I wrote up a review of this app here. By announcing via Twitter, your personal Facebook profile, your blog and your email list, you can broadcast regular live Internet TV shows from your fan page and create much buzz.

Another example of app integration is Target’s “Bullseye Gives” campaign. Target had their fans vote on which of ten charities they most wanted to see the company donate to. By voting, a post goes out onto your Facebook wall and into the News Feeds of all your friends, thus providing Target with valuable exposure. (For custom apps, see companies like Buddy Media, FanAppz, Wildfire Apps, Involver, Virtue, Context Optional.) [UPDATE: Thank you to Context Optional, the creators of Target’s “Bullseye Gives” campaign!]

#6: Integrate the Facebook Comment Feature

My favorite example of this is the t-shirt company Threadless. On their landing tab (canvas page), you can view and purchase t-shirts as well as Like and comment on any item and choose to have that comment posted to your Facebook profile, as shown in this screenshot:

(Screenshot of Threadless Facebook Fan Page landing tab)

Threadless actually has their landing tab set up so visitors don’t have to become a fan to purchase/comment/interact. Yet they have organically built well over 100,000 fans.

As users comment on items, that activity is pushed out into their stream (profile wall and their friends’ News Feeds), which creates valuable viral visibility for your fan page.

For further information on adding the comment box to your FBML page/app, see these pages.

#7: Get Fans to Tag Photos

If you host live events, be sure to take plenty of photos (or even hire a professional photographer), load the photos to your fan page and encourage fans to tag themselves. This, again, pushes out into their wall and friends’ News Feeds, providing valuable (free!) exposure. And, a picture says a thousand words – we notice the thumbnails in our feed more than text. (Props to Nick O’Neil for this tip.)

#8: Load Videos and Embed on Your Site

Facebook’s Video feature is extremely powerful. You can load video content to your Facebook fan page, then take the source code and embed on your blog/website. There is a “Become a Fan” button right in the video itself. For an excellent tutorial, see Nick O’Neil’s post: How To Get Thousands of Facebook Fans With a Single Video.

[UPDATE: Since Facebook changed the Become a Fan button to the Like button, embedded Facebook videos now display a white watermark hotlink of the Facebook name in the upper left corner of the video player - see first screenshot below. This is a clickable link that goes to the original video page on your fan page. If the visitor to your site clicks through to Facebook from your video, and they are logged into Facebook at the time, they will see a Like button at the top left corner of the video player - see second screenshot below.]

(Screenshot shows example of an embedded Facebook video on an external site)

(Screenshot shows the same video on the original page of the fan page with the Like button)

#9: Place Facebook Ads

Even with a nominal weekly/monthly budget, you should be able to boost your fan count using Facebook’s own social ad feature. It’s the most targeted traffic your money can buy. To buy an ad, scroll to the foot of any page inside Facebook and click the link at the very bottom that says “Advertising.” From there, you can walk through the wizard and get an excellent sense of how many Facebook users are in your exact target market.

Then, when you advertise your fan page, Facebook users can become a fan (click the Like button) right from the ad as shown in the screenshot below. Additionally, Facebook displays several of your friends who have already liked you, thus creating social proof.

My book with Chris Treadaway, Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day (Sybex) contains comprehensive instructions on maximizing your marketing through Facebook social ads.

#10: Run a Contest

This is somewhat of a gray area because Facebook changed their Promotional Guidelines last year. Essentially, you need prior written permission from Facebook and need to be spending a significant amount on ads per month. However, you CAN require Facebook users to become a fan of your fan page in order to enter a contest, sweepstakes, drawing or competition. See these two posts for further explanation. PLUS, good news: you CAN run contests and sweepstakes with the use of the apps created by Wildfire App.

#11: Link to Twitter

Link your Twitter account to your Facebook fan page and automatically post your Facebook content to Twitter. You can edit what gets posted, choosing from Status Updates, Photos, Links, Notes and Events.

You have 420 characters on the Facebook publisher and 140 on Twitter. In the tweet that goes out, Facebook truncates your post past a certain character count and inserts a bit.ly link back to your fan page. To track click-through stats on that link, just paste the bit.ly link that Facebook created for you in your browser’s address bar and add a “+” sign to the end. This works for any bit.ly link!

I also recommend you promote your Facebook fan page on your Twitter background and possibly in your Twitter bio/URL field too.

#12: Get Fans to Join Via SMS

Your fans can join your fan page via text message! You’ll need to get your first 25 fans and secure your username. Then, to join your fan page, Facebook users just send a text message to 32665 (FBOOK) with the words “fan yourusername” OR “like yourusername” (without the quotes).

This feature is ideal when you’re addressing a live audience, say. Have everyone pull out their mobile phones and join your fan page on the spot! This would also work well for radio or TV. (Note that this only works for Facebook users with a verified mobile device in his or her account.)

#13: Use Print Media

Look at every piece of print media you use in your business. Your Facebook fan page (as well as Twitter and any other social sites you’re active on), should be clearly displayed. Put your Facebook fan page link (and the logo) on your business cards, letterhead, brochure, print newsletter, magazine ads, products, etc.

#14: Display at Your Store/Business

If your business is run from physical premises, put a placard on the front desk letting your customers know you’re on Facebook. Ideally, you have a simple, memorable username. Incentivize customers to join right away via their mobile device and show you/your staff the confirmation for some kind of instant reward!

You might give out physical coupons promoting your fan page. For restaurants, put the Facebook logo, your username and a call to action on your menus.

I was at a hotel in San Francisco last fall and they had a placard in the elevators promoting their presence on Facebook and Twitter. The sign was very noticeable because of those ubiquitous Facebook and Twitter logos/colors!

#15. Add a Link on Your Personal Profile

If you’d like to promote your fan page to your Facebook friends, just under your photo on your personal profile there is a section to write something about yourself. I call this the “mini bio” field and strongly suggest adding a link to your fan page like so:

Be sure to format the URL with http:// otherwise it will not be clickable with just the www’s. You have a limited amount of characters, so keep it succinct and leave out the www’s. You can put in hard line breaks though to make the content easier to read.

#16: Add a Badge/Button to Your Profile

Using an app like Profile HTML or Extended Info, you can create your own custom HTML, including a Facebook badge and/or graphic embedded, as shown in the screenshot below:

#17: Use the Share Button

The Share button is all over Facebook and is a very handy feature. It only works for sharing on your personal profile. So periodically go to your fan page, scroll toward the bottom left column and click the “Share+” button. Add a compelling comment along the lines of exciting news, recent changes, special incentives, etc., happening on your fan page and invite your friends to join if they haven’t already. I find the Share button far more effective than the Suggest to Friends approach. (And, if you’d like to Share content from the web on to your fan page vs. profile, I highly recommend using the Hootlet bookmarklet tool at HootSuite.com).

#18: Use the @ Tag

As long as you’re a fan of your own fan page, you can “@ tag” it on your own personal profile wall. From time to time, you can let your friends know about something happening on your fan page by writing a personal status update that includes tagging your fan page with an @ tag. Simply start typing the “@” symbol and the first few letters of your fan page name (this works whether you have your username registered or not), and it will appear from a drop-down menu to select. This then makes it a nice, subtle hyperlink that your friends can choose to click on.

#19: Autograph Posts on Other Walls

A subtle way to gain more visibility for your fan page is to add an @ tag for your fan page when writing on your friends’ walls as a way to sign off.

I would use this one sparingly and, again, monitor the response from your friends. I have never been a fan of adding a signature block on Facebook wall posts because our name and profile picture thumbnail are always hyperlinked right back to our profile anyway. But the simple @ tag could be effective.

#20: Autograph Other Fan Pages

As with adding your fan page @ tag to posts you make on your friends’ walls, you could equally use the same technique when posting on other fan pages. This needs to be used with discretion and I would advise against doing this on any potentially competing fan page!

#21: Maybe Use “Suggest To Friends”

I won’t rule this one out completely as it does depend on how many friends you have, your relationship with your friends, how often you suggest fan pages/friends to your friends, etc (see ‘The Big Myth’ above). But I do recommend monitoring the response to this technique – perhaps simply by asking for feedback in your status update.

So, these are just 21 ways to create strategic visibility and promote your Facebook fan page.

Let’s hear from you.  Which ones have you implemented with success? Plus, do feel free to add any of your own creative promotional ideas in the comments box below!

In this video I interview Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer for the 358,000 member organization MarketingProfs.

Ann talks about how she manages being the public face on Twitter for her organization. She also shares how her own Twitter strategy has evolved over the last 2 years.

In this video Ann also discusses the challenges of having employees represent your brands on social media and how to approach social media policies.

This video contains many great tips for businesses using social media. Here are some of them to listen for:

• How Ann mixes business and personal tweets on Twitter
• Why businesses struggle to humanize their brand 
• Why it’s important to identify your goals for social media and to put bumpers in place
• How to set social media policies that work
• Why employees represent their business in a wider environment today and how this impacts the hiring process
• How social media beginners should start by wading in and listening before they speak

Be sure to check out the Marketing Profs blog and website where you can find an overwhelming amount of marketing resources, including a Social Media ROI Case Study collection.

What takeaways do you have after listening to Ann? What’s your experience of Twitter? How does your social media policy work for your company? Please share you comments below.

In this video I interview John Bernier, Social Media Manager at Best Buy. John is best known as one of the brains behind Best Buy’s Twelpforce, an online customer service initiative on Twitter.

Watch this video to find out how Twelpforce manages 2,100 Best Buy employees as they answer thousands of customer questions on Twitter.

After you watch the video, be sure to read the takeaways below.

In John’s words, Twelpforce helps Best Buy “bridge the gap between the knowledge customers have, to the knowledge customers need to enjoy their products, and to get to the ideal dream state or experience.”

Here are some of the many interesting points John shares in this video:

• Twelpforce launched at 80% ready to go
• Best Buy’s social media policy made it possible for 2100 employees to participate in just a few months
• Peers help peers to become social media experts
• They use a simple system with ConnectTweet and the hashtag “#twelpforce” to respond to tweets

And here are John’s tip for businesses just starting out on social media:

• Figure out ways to be social
• Turn your assets into something social
• Expect to have failures; these failures will be small but your successes will be great.

In addition to checking out the @Twelpforce on Twitter, have a look at both the Best Buy Fan Page on Facebook and their Ideax project to get ideas on how to become more social.  It’s easy to see why John expects Twelpforce to evolve in the future as they engage socially with their customers even more.

What do you think about the Twelpforce initiative? What did you come away with after watching this video? What do you think of Best Buy’s social media policy? Do you have a group of employees using Twitter to represent your business?  If so, what tools do you use?

As always, please share your comments below.