Writing by Nick Stamoulis

Is having a robust and user friendly Facebook fan page the new cool when it comes to web marketing? Since Facebook announced their fan pages years ago, businesses have been trying to figure out the secret sauce to building up a fun and successful fan page in order to build and grow a community. There are a number of ways that you can build up your page and get people talking but it is going to take a little bit of work. This doesn’t just happen overnight.

Facebook “Like” Box
For starters, you will want to incorporate a Facebook “like” box into your site somewhere so that your community can start growing. You need to find a way for people to become a member first. Showing your Website Traffic that a Facebook fan page exists is really the first step.

Entice People to Become Fans
Give your Website Traffic an actual reason to become a fan. Unless you are a heavily branded business it might take some work to get people to “like” your fan page, so you have to give them a reason. Offer special Facebook promotions to fan members along with discounts and news.

Custom Facebook Page Design
If you take a look around you will notice that some of the more popular Facebook fan pages have their own custom design for when traffic first sets eyes on it. After that the traffic is free to navigate around through the other tabs including the wall where everyone is hanging out.

Engage Your Facebook Community
The main purpose of the fan page is to build a community, grow a brand, and trigger a following; so make sure to engage your community in a number of ways. Start discussions and ask questions on your wall so that your fans can get involved in discussing various industry topics.

If you want to have a nice robust and active Facebook fan page you are going to have to treat it like a community and entice your audience to perform an action on it, otherwise it could just sit there building up dust and that is not conducive to building an online brand.