Attracting the right people to your fan page is what's going to help you build the brand awareness for your business. Today, we'll talk about 4 different approaches that will ultimately help you promote your page to the folks that matter most to your business. And by the way -- please take that last statement into real consideration. Who are the folks that matter most to your the success of your business? Have you thought about that recently? Is it always your customers?

Approach 1 -- Organic Fan Base Growth

I always recommend that businesses start their fan base growth organically. So what does that mean? Whether you are an independent contractor or a larger company with multiple employees, you have folks that you are already friends with on Facebook. Not every one of those friends will be someone who has interest in the type of work you do or the type of business you run, but some will. They can also act as a fan base referral source, as long as you let them know that your page is there, and who you would like to have as fans. Start by going into your Facebook page and look to the right sidebar navigation. You will notice a text link in the left sidebar that reads 'suggest to friends'. When you click that link, it will open up a popup box that will display your personal network of friends (from your personal Facebook profile). In this pop up, you will have the ability to easily search for and select friends from your network that might have some interest in your business page. But, the last thing you want to do is get labeled as a spammer. Be careful that when you are sending out your page suggestions, make sure to keep these things in mind:

• Is your business page relevant to the person your sending it to? For instance, if your business is a local business, are they in your local area?
• How well do you know them? Are they long lost high school classmates or friends who you see often?
• Do the folks you send your suggestions to have any affiliation to you professionally?
• How will they benefit from becoming a fan of your Facebook page? What's in it for them?
• Do they have a page? If so, are you already a fan of theirs?

Remember that you can ask each employee of your business to follow the same course of action, and make sure to allow them on the clock time for this activity. Depending on the size of their network, this could take them between a few minutes to a few hours. In time, you can also have your page admins ask active fans if they would be willing to suggest your page to any friends in their network that might be interested in your business or content.

Approach 2 -- Facebook Ads

It's no joke that Facebook advertising revenue is the company's bread and butter, to the tune of $1.86 billion in 2010. With that in mind, it's no wonder that Facebook has made great efforts and continuous enhancements to it's feature rich self-service advertising platform. Some of the releases in the last year include social context ads and ads for applications that pull data from your personal social graph in order to display the folks you already know who might already be liking a page or using an application (respectively). Rather than reiterate all the nitty gritty details here, I'll simply point you to the complete guide to Facebook ads provided by our friends in Mountain View. The guide is a complete tutorial that contains information on each and every function of the advertising platform. I keep this guide bookmarked in my Diigo library as a resource. I also find this presentation by Clara Shih (founder and CEO of Sequoia-backed Hearsay Social) gives a really good strategic overview of how businesses can think about using Facebook ads to micro-target users in a variety of different ways. She also has a book available on Amazon entitled The Facebook Era that's definitly worth reading.

Approach 3 -- Facebook Sponsored Stories

Launched earlier this year, Facebook's sponsored stories is a different type of ad unit. Sponsored stories work when a user checks in to claimed Place page, Likes a fan page, or even shares content to their home news feed from an application that has purchased Sponsored Stories as part of their PPC mix. Once a user has completed one or all of the actions above, their activity appears as a brief banner advertisement to their friends in the right sidebar located under the normal display module for ads. What's interesting (and effective) about sponsored stories is that they display:

• the user's name and photo
• additional friends the user may have tagged
• a picture of and link to the advertised Facebook page or app
• any likes or comments from the original post

Much in the same way that social context ads or application ads work, sponsored stories leverage the familiarity of someone from your personal network of friends to breed trust that helps to drive the click. Think of this as sort of a digital bandwagon.

Approach -- Offline Fan Drivers

Aside from all the cool and shiny toys that Facebook provides inside the platform, you can also use offline tactics to drive new potential fans to your page. Here are fairly simple 5 ideas you can try on your own:

1. Use QR codes in print advertisements or direct mail to send folks directly to a mobile site where they can like your page
2. Use in-store signage or POS displays with and a special offer that entices your customers to become fans of your Facebook page. For instance, if you sell coffee, offer a free cup if your customer can show you that they are a fan.
3. Train your staff to verbally ask your customers and prospects if they are a fan of your page. Train them to explain why they should become a fan of your page (more on that in tomorrow's post).
4. Set up your Place page and integrate it into your fan page. Facebook will then mail you some snazzy window clings reminding your customers to check in when they arrive. Don't forget to hang them up
5. If you do the whole public speaking thing, ask your audience(s) to like the page while you are on stage. Tease them to do so by making a special resource available to them in a link in your page's wall.

If this series is helpful to you, make sure you come back tomorrow for the post on managing the your Facebook page and the community of your fans. You'll hear some stuff straight from folks who are managing communities right now.