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Top 8 Facebook best practices to get your business page noticed.

• I'd like to set-up a new Facebook page for my business and want to get it off on the right foot. Can you tell me exactly where I need to go to get started and what I should concentrate on once I set it up? I see a lot of pages that have few fans; what can I do to make sure my business page gets noticed?

Answer:Facebook can be a great platform to brand your business and interact with your audience, but only if you use it correctly! Avoid the fate of so many other businesses by following these eight suggested best practices:

• 1 - Create a unique, custom, page image for your profile:Your page image will follow you wherever you make a post on Facebook and will serve as your visual branding image in the site. Make good use of this space. While a group photo of your friendly, smiling staff may look great as a full sized image it just doesn't translate as a profile image. Do something really creative that will entertain your audience and look good from a distance. We can't all have appealing graphics like Red Bull or Vin Diesel. But at a bare minimum you can make sure your photo is clear and not cropped when it's resized to a thumbnail.
• 2 - Put up relevant and interesting content:Facebook business pages give you a chance to promote your business, but shameless self promotion is still a no-no for effective social media. You have to make visiting your page worth it to your fans. Post relevant content from related sites to increase your page's value (you get 420 characters in the publisher, use them all). Look at Google Blogsearch, Bloglines or AllTop to find interesting posts that relate to your industry. You can also browse through top stories on social news sites like Digg and Reddit. If you mix in your own promotional posts within this helpful content it will look less promotional and more helpful.
• 3 - Join the conversation:Social networking siteslike Facebook are meant for interaction! Make sure you're getting in the "mud" with your audience by participating in the ongoing discussions. Look for opportunities to comment on other people's status updates and start conversations that others can participate in. Facebook gives you the opportunity to humanize your company and connect with people, but only if you participate in the discussion.
• 4 - Add apps into your page to increase interaction:Involvement devices like Facebook apps let your customers interact with you. They entertain your audience and can increase your fan base. Apps normally ask users to invite their friends meaning a good app can result in a big boom in your follower numbers. Pizza Hut has put this principle to good use with their Get Pizza on Your Faceapp which allows users to order a pizza without leaving Facebook. Apps can come in many different forms - from mini-games to special discounts. For ideas, visit the AllFaceBook.com leader board to see the most popular apps at any one time on Facebook organized by category.
• 5 - Direct new visitors to a custom page:Facebook will automatically send traffic to your wall, which can be very disorienting to new visitors. However, you can change this in the options by selecting a specific page for new users. A great example of this in action is the SkittlesMob the Rainbow custom entry page. The page changes monthly and promotes a new contest or interactive option (February's was a free create and send Valentine's Cards app) to lure in more fans to its already 3.7 million strong Facebook total.
• 6 - Post and tag users in photos and videos:This technique takes a little forethought, but it is well worth it. You can run a contest and have users send pictures of them using your product or service. If you have a brick and mortar store, you can even have them come in to the store to participate in the contest and snap a photo there. When you upload the photos to Facebook, you tag the photos with their user name. The photos will appear in their stream, which will be visible to all of their friends. Swedish furniture company IKEA used photo tagging in a campaign they ran in Nov, 2009 which is still legendary in social media circles. Watch this YouTube video detailing the IKEA Facebook Showroom.
• 7 - Add custom tabs into the page:The best business pages use custom tabs to further personalize their page to their audience. Don't be like most Facebook business users and leave your page in default mode! A great example can be seen in this custom tab for T-shirt company Threadless. From the tab fans can vote on new T-shirt designs, comment or even buy the shirts directly through Facebook. Use custom tabs to add product pages, embed polls and promote events to your page to get people more involved.
• 8 - Promote your page with Facebook Ads:Getting subscribers can be slow going at first. To jumpstart the process make use of the Facebook advertising program to generate qualified traffic you can refine by keyword, demographic data or category. Facebook ads will put your business page in front of hundreds of thousands of users who have similar interests and who may be inclined to join your new promoted fan page.

According to a recent Facebook fan study by business intelligence firm Sysomos, 77% of all Facebook Fan pages have fewer than 1000 fans. We can't all have the incredible fan totals that such well-known brands as Starbucks, Coca-Cola or Skittleshave generated. But if you follow these suggested eight best practices, you'll be ready to tackle the world of Facebook fandom with botheyes open and draw in potentially thousands of fans that are interested in your brand and conversation.