This is the most common question I get from clients.  The truth is it takes time to build a new fan base from scratch.

From the day you set up a Facebook page, it does require an ongoing commitment to brand, monitor, and network with people who find interest in your product. Besides quality service, it’s important to build close-knit relationships with visitors.

How do you get people to like your Facebook page?  Here are 10 tips…

#1: Be Prepared With Quality Wall Posts and Consistent Engagement

If you want to be liked, be likeable first.  A disorganized Facebook page can turn off customers instantly. When reviewing a Facebook page, quality content and active engagements are great first impressions.

Several other factors people look for before joining a page include the brand itself, consistent posting of fresh information, and active engagement from both fans and admin.

#2: Reward Your Loyal Supporters

You may have just started your Facebook page, but your business is well-established. Encourage your loyal customers to join your Facebook page as supporters, reward them with customizable badges/tabs (to be placed on their profiles for visibility) and special deals for consistent support.

A shout-out from a happy customer is a lot more attractive than a marketing slogan, creating irresistible appeal for that ‘Like’ button.

#3: Leverage Your Existing Social Networks

If you’ve built a strong Twitter network for your business, utilize it to promote your Facebook page. Some people prefer not to overlap similar social contacts on both accounts, but why diminish your chance to be noticed? Your followers can broadcast your message on both of their social platforms by reaching out to a greater audience about your business.

A brilliant example of this is how Mari Smith rewarded her Twitter followers while attracting people to visit her fan page:

Did I mention that a few indirect promotions on your Facebook personal profile could work wonders too?

#4: Integrate Facebook Social Plugins to Your Website

It’s essential to have a main hub correlating all your social media activities. Your company’s website is the only place that gives you full control over content and brand management.

Integrate Facebook social plugins to encourage connections such as Facebook’s Likebox, Like button, and Comment stream.

As Facebook visitors increase, your page is more likely to show up on supporters’ news feeds and those of their friends, prompting people to find out more about your business page.

#5: Remind Your Fans to Like and Share

Facebook has some easy ready-made sharing buttons with which people can promote your tabs and pages to their friends.  Place a shout-out or reminder to ‘Like’ your status updates and instruct fans to click that little ‘Share’ button right next to your message so their friends will be alerted about the update.

#6: Utilize Forum Signatures and Membership Sites

If you’re an active participant in a forum or membership site, placing a signature with your fan page link is a plus. No-one will care about your information unless you stand out from the crowd.

Be an active helper in a LinkedIn Group or a frequent poster of special tips and tricks. As long as your participation in the niche community is appreciated, there’s a higher chance for other members to check you out.

Here’s an example of my signature at Chris Garrett’s Authority Blogger Forum.

#7: Take the Initiative: Request Help From Friends

It’s difficult to start a fan page with no engagement whatsoever. Why not initiate messages to your friends and buddies who are supportive of your business? Ask them to help out in some discussions, reward them with publicity or return the favor. It’s easier to ask a friend than a stranger if you’re worried about spamming people.

Make sure the question is interesting enough to get them talking. If you use your personal account and fan page strategically, you’ll discover a huge advantage of getting new friends to be your fans while they’re getting to know you better.

#8: Use Tagging and Acknowledgments

A great networking tool, status-tagging, can even drive in new connections.  Tag an author or a popular Facebook page to draw attention, but only if you have good reason to do so.

For example, selflessly promote a niche-post and how it benefits people who like your page. Be authentic, and the page admin (hopefully the fans as well) will appreciate you for it.

#9: Participate Outside Your Page

Use the Facebook Directory and Facebook Search to locate other Facebook pages in your niche and look for public discussions based on search terms related to your business.

Provide value to the popular pages; build credibility and relationships with the admin and members.  Get to know them better before asking them to look at your page. They just may reward you publicly.

#10: Collaborate With Other Page Admins for a Social Event

You can collaborate with other page admins to create a special event that may benefit both your fans and bring in new connections. I find this to be very successful.  There should be a mutual understanding and proper planning to make it work for everyone’s professional goals.

For example, Social Media Success Summit 2010 was a successful live online conference with 24 social media experts who shared how to use social media to attract quality customers and grow your business.

There are many ways you can increase your Facebook fan base.  Remember, showcase the quality of your service and why it matters to be a part of your page community.

Cut through the noise and let your message be heard. Intelligently apply Facebook Applications to enhance your Facebook page while learning from these superstars to empower your social media presence. Quality networking starts with effort and time, but the return will be worthwhile!

What have you done to be “liked”? What rewards have you used?  What have you done to increase visitors to your Facebook fan page?  Let us know in the box below.

Rich content creates a memorable interface that gets people talking, lets a special announcement or contest go viral, improves fans’ engagement and so much more.

To create an important hub to reach out to millions of potential supporters, you need to up your game and optimize your fan page to meet its ultimate purpose.

(Important Update: Facebook no longer supports FBML. Please refer to the articles on Facebook iFrame.) Everything is possible, thanks to the powerful Facebook application known as Static FBML. Many people may be unaware of the advanced functionality FBML gives a fan page, such as creating and naming your tabs or boxes freely. For those who are curious just how powerful Static FBML can get, we’re going to inspect it all here:

#1: Welcome Page

The main purpose of a Welcome tab is to provide an overview of your page—what you can offer to people who like your page and why it should matter to them. Quit force-feeding new visitors a sales pitch; instead convince them with solid reasons to stay as followers.  You have one chance to impress them, so make sure your Welcome tab serves its purpose:  greet with enthusiasm, guide visitors to ‘like’ or have a look at certain tabs.  Mini websites, Flash and webcasts are just some of the advanced methods you can use to create a lively, impactful Welcome page.

Create a strong call to action with eye-catching graphics and clear instructions.

#2: Social Profiles and Contact Information

Have you ever wondered why certain options are not visible in the Info tab? For example, there is no place to include your business hours and location, while other pages have it. You’ve probably selected the wrong type of fan page during the setup process. Because deleting and recreating a fan page with a large number of people who like your pages is not really an option, Static FBML provides you a way to include your business contact details as often as you like.

Use extra information and social buttons to enhance visibility of a contact box.

#3: Testimonial Page

When it comes to service providers and professionals, nothing is more convincing than a testimonial page. You can have a static page with testimonials or have a designer create a catchy layout to attract peoples’ attention. How you decide to showcase your testimonial page is only limited by its relevancy and your creativity. Static FBML allows you to do so much, even placing video testimonials and arranging client reviews in the order you prefer.

Create an attractive Testimonial tab with FBML that draws attention.

#4: Newsletter and Opt-In Form

An opt-in form can be easily placed on either your Welcome tab or as a box on the sidebar of the fan page wall. Regardless where you put it, make sure it’s visible at all times for people to sign up. It’s an added opportunity to build a strong readership and a potential client base with email marketing. Some of the famous services such as Aweber and MailChimp provide HTML code for users to place an opt-in form in any selected tab using static FBML.

To encourage sign-up, place an opt-in form on your Welcome page, as a box on your wall or as a tab.

#5: Secret Membership Area

This is a tricky one to entice visitors to like your fan page.  Prepare several useful resources, backstage passes, anything you can think of that provides value.  It can be a newsletter or any private content with hacks and tips, business guidelines or videos that are available solely to people who like your page.

Encourage visitors to Like by providing a secret resource area only accessible to them.

#6: Contests and Special Events

For fan pages with regular monthly events or contests, a tab can be used as a promotional board for fans to check out the details and deadlines. A sharing button makes it all easy for anyone to share the exciting news with their friends. Try it and see how your information can go viral before your eyes.

Build a special tab consisting of contest details and monthly events that can be shared easily.

#7: Article Links

Ever wonder what you can do for those old, yet timeless, posts on your blog? Why not give them some extra visibility by placing an ‘oldies but goodies’ box next to your fan box? Steal some attention with a slight bit of creativity and occasionally mention them in your announcements. You can rotate the frequency of post links or even post categories so visitors have a wide range of selections, as shown on Social Media Examiner’s fan page.  Most of all, it’s much better than the usual Social RSS feed that only displays the most recent entries.

Include a category box of articles that allows visitors to navigate effortlessly to the main site.

#8: Job Board

People are turning to social media sites for job opportunities. It’s no surprise that even Facebook’s own fan page has a We’re Hiring tab to recruit. There are 200 million active users who log on to Facebook daily. If your company has job opportunities, why not insert a job board on your fan page?

You just never know who might drop in one day.

#9: Analytics

Who would forget the popular Google Analytics post about the magic code we place in the FBML tabs to track page visits? Combining this fantastic method with static FBML, we can now decide which FBML tabs are staying which tabs should go.

Have you been playing with static FBML to enhance your fan page? Feel free to share your experience and success stories with us.