Looking to learn from you GREAT minds out there! How can I best grow an FB page in the least expensive way. I am leaning toward utilizing Facebook ads, and if this is your take on the subject any advice on creating one would be so very appreciated – many thanks!

Having a special welcome page or tab is one key ingredient to a successful page, when I started my company in last year I had nothing… first thing was create a special welcome tab with an offer and making sure I had valuable content on the page consistently.  Participating in groups not plugging my business just sharing knowledge.  Liking pages as my page not as my profile.  Then I started placing ads and it helped.  I am still working out the best formula to make them successful.  It really takes commitment, you do have to evaluate them every 2-3 days, watch your demographics and inactivate the ones that aren’t producing.  Set up 5-7 in one campaign to start  not all of them will produce, like I said I am forever learning so hoping this forum will help.  This is just my two cents, hope it helped!  =-)

Great advice above.  The big key for real, long term success is to provide great and valuable content.  Without great content, people will come but won’t like and share.

With that said, a method i like to get people to like your page is to run a contest.  the better the prize, the better the results will be. But it can be done on a budget. You have to use a 3rd party app as per FB’s TOS. 

I am a beginner in social networking. We have a FB page that needs a lot of help for our business (handmade jewelry). What steps do I take first? What are tabs? How do I make a great landing page with valuable content for them to “Like” our page and share. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed since mainly it will be my job to do the internet marketing, not my husband. At the same time I am excited and ready to do what it takes to make it happen. Thanks for all of your help and advice, it is much appreciated.

Thank you so much! @mikebrooks I feel relieved.  

I have been reading your blog and it’s very informative and makes sense to someone like me who knows next to nothing, love it!  I also went to Mari Smith’s page earlier and will go back to it and read more in depth.  

Share quality content. Engage like crazy.

These are the two things that I do to promote my copywriting service on social media.

Share content
I am subscribed to hundreds of RSS feeds on topics of interest. This is how I keep myself updated with developments in my niche. It is also where I get ideas on what to write about. I write content for my own blog at least twice a week.

I have a number of social media accounts. I share content with these accounts at least once a day. Everything points back to my blog, where you will find my sales funnel.

Always on engage-mode
The majority of my time is spent joining conversations. I comment on blogs with commentluv plugins, I join forum like these, and I interact with people and pages on facebook, as well as other social media sites.

The intention is not to spam, but to offer solutions and build rapport. I never sell them anything. What I want to happen is for them to come to the conclusion that I was able to help them with their problem. No strings attached.

As you can see, these activities will not cost you anything but your time and effort. Soon as you start getting more business, you can choose to outsource these activities, or scale them down to manageable levels.