With Facebook surpassing 500 million active users and over half of them logging in daily, the ability to connect and create brand ambassadors has never been more accessible for businesses. Recent studies show that the average Facebook fan is worth $136.38 (from Syncapse).

• On average, fans spend an extra $71.84 they would not otherwise spend on products they describe themselves as fans of, compared to those who are not fans.
• Fans are 28 percent more likely than non-fans to continue using a specific brand.
• Fans are 41 percent more likely than non-fans to recommend a product they are a fan of to their friends.

The cost of entry into a Facebook Fan Page is zero and there are some easy tips to create engaging content. With hundreds of thousands of “fan” pages out there, how can you make yours stand out? The DrinkNectar fan base has grown to 3000 and I’ve been looking at ways to take the page to the next level. Below are five fabulous Facebook finds (some of which I’ve incorporated, others that are coming soon).

No Brainers

1. Change your wall options to show “Yours + Others” posts. You’re not holding a one way conversation here. Pages that just broadcast aren’t very engaging.
2. Don’t just sell, ask open ended questions. You have fans, they want to engage with you. If you sell mattresses, ask about their sleep. If you make quilts ask about their stitch patterns. Generate conversation and you’ll generate loyal brand ambassadors.
3. Post. Having a few hundred or even a few thousand fans does you no good if you don’t post regularly. The average Facebook person has 126 friends. That feed can fill up pretty quickly. If you post once a week you’re making maybe a few dozen impressions at best.

NetworkedBlogs.com

Don’t have a blog for your business? Uh…hmmm…well, first let me tell you that you NEED ONE. It is one of the single best ways to generate search engine optimization for your key words AND it provides a great resource for your customers to connect with you. For those that have a blog, NetworkedBlogs lets you connect your existing blog feed to their network of 300,000 blogs. This will help you get found and is a great additional resource to connect your amazing writing to your Facebook friends/fans/likers. Once you have your blog connected it’s easy to add the application as a tab to the top of your fan page. You can also connect your blog to twitter so new posts tweet automatically and you can choose to re-post your articles to your Facebook feed as a status update.

Involver.com

Involver is a suite of tools that can help connect your Facebook fans with your other social networks (Twiiter, You Tube, Flicker). The application also offers cool interactive photo sharing, slide shows, music, PDF files and a host of other advanced features. Involver offers nine free applications along with pro and premium services for the more advanced user. At the minimum you can connect your Twitter and YouTube accounts to Facebook tabs for free!

Promotions

Struggle with measuring your ROI for Social Media? The key is to develop a measurable way to track results. How do you measure your investment in the phone book? Do you keep track of every time your phone rings? Promotions Facebook Application lets you create custom promotions that you can build and launch in a matter of minutes (sweepstakes, quizzes, coupons, contests, group coupons, email lists and more). Promotions has been used by Pepsi, Universal, AT&T, Sony and more. There is a small charge of $5 per promotion and $1 per each day you run the campaign.

FBML

FBML is Facebook Markup Language.  Basically, it’s HTML for Facebook.  FBML allows you to configure your Fan Page with custom tabs.  If you know HTML, you’ll be set in no time. If you don’t have any experience with HTML, like me, I highly suggest you work with a web developer who can quickly and easily add all of the custom apps you want. To save you time and money, map out what you want your custom welcome tab to do/say before you meet with a developer. Sadly Facebook recently removed the Boxes tab/app from the system which eliminated adding custom left side panel items on your Facebook page…boo Facebook.  If you’ve ever wondered how Pepsi or Reese’s (shown below) gets their fancy welcome screens…BAM…FBML. With a little bit of work, you can play like the big boys.

Now that you’ve discovered five fabulous Facebook finds…do the cool thing and “share” or “tweet” or “like” to spread the word. Oh, by the way, that is the sixth fabulous Facebook find…add a social plug in to your blog. The one on this page is called Links Alpha.