All signs point to an increase of small business Facebook marketing.  The facts do not lie: there are now over 300 million active users on Facebook, and Facebook is providing a cost effective marketing medium to reach those users during this recession.  Not long ago, Facebook made public their intent to make the website even easier for businesses to promote themselves and spread their messages (check out the new Facebook developers roadmap for more information).

The “why” is now obvious but the “how” can be a daunting task.  Before you map out your “how,” it is important to understand the different points of leverage when it comes to small business Facebook marketing while still understanding the limitations small and local businesses have when marketing on Facebook.  With that in mind, here are a few strategies that all small businesses should employ while marketing on Facebook.

1. Use Facebook Fan Pages to spread your message - Facebook has been dedicating more and more of its efforts to bettering their fan pages, meaning companies will be gaining more exposure on Facebook while providing users with a better opportunity to interact with those companies. Therefore, Creating a Facebook Page should be the main starting point for any small business.  Businesses can create a fan base, have a conversation with those fans, and ultimately lead them to their product offering.  Companies like Involve Social give small businesses even further reach by allowing them to download applications for their Fan Page like polls, coupons, quizzes and others that will draw in a larger fan base.

2. Cross promotion with other marketing efforts – One of the biggest misconceptions of small business Facebook marketing is that once you establish yourself, people will naturally find you.  Just like any other form of marketing, you must optimize your strategy in order to be found.  So when it comes to small local businesses, cross promotion through other marketing efforts is a must.  Some ideas: hold your event’s guest list on your fan page events tab or print your fan page URL on your bags, flyers and other handouts; there are unlimited opportunities if you are willing to be creative.  Take a lesson from Mo’ Bettah Steaks a Hawaiian restaurant out of Utah.  They hosted a wonderfully creative contest on Facebook which brought their fan page to over 2,000 fans (great for a local business).  Any user who posted a profile picture of themselves with their favorite Mo’ Bettah dish and tagged that photo on the Mo’ Bettah fan page, got a chance to win a gift certificate from the restaurant.  The success of the contest was largely based on its ability to expose the picture to the user’s entire network, effectively spreading the contest through fans of the restaurant and not directly through the restaurant itself.  Experiment with a few creative offline marketing ideas and you can have your very own Mo’ Bettah Steak story.

3. Do not SPAM, add value instead- More is not necessarily better when it comes to Facebook.  Instead, Facebook users embrace authentic and well thought out content that educates and entertains.  Facebook is becoming a hub for companies to distribute not just promotional information, but their thoughts on their industry.  Upload videos, links, pictures, and post insightful status updates that inform your audience about your company and industry.  Focus on updating the content regularly during peak traffic times (usually afternoon) but not to the point where it becomes overbearing.  While it is important to display your company’s offering, be careful to not over promote your brand.  Balance is key.

Put these strategies to work and mold them to fit your business and industry.  Soon enough, you will begin to discover what works, what does not work, and how to eventually build an audience of loyal customers through small business Facebook marketing.

Editor’s Note: Brenton Gieser is the Director of Business Development for one of the leading Social Media Application Development Agencies, Avenue Social.  Avenue Social has created over 400 Facebook applications for companies big and small.  Read more of Brenton’s stuff at BrentonGieser.com or follow him on Twitter @brentongieser.