“How can I quickly encourage people to become followers of my Facebook business page?” This is a common question most businesses and clients have. The truth is it takes time to build a new fan base for your business and there is no steadfast formula that guarantees overnight success.

From the first day you set up a Facebook business page, it requires an ongoing commitment to brand, monitor and network with people who find interest in your product or services. Besides quality service, it’s important to build close-knit relationships with visitors.

Here are 5 tips to get started:

1. Use quality content and provide consistent engagement.

If you want to be liked, then you have to be likeable first. An unorganized Facebook business page can turn away customers instantly. When reviewing a Facebook business page, quality content and active engagements are great first impressions.

Several other factors people look for before joining a page include the brand itself, consistent posting of fresh content, information, and active engagement from both fans and admins.

2. Reward your loyal fans

You may have just started your Facebook business page, but your company may already be well-established. Encourage your loyal customers to join your Facebook page as fans or supporters and reward them with special deals for consistent support.

Create special awards like fan of the week or month. Have fan appreciation days or share fan pages of your supporters with other followers. The ways to reward y9our fans are limited only by the imagination so be creative and show your supporters some love occasionally.

A shout-out from a happy customer is a lot more attractive than a marketing slogan and it can go a long way in creating irresistible appeal for that ‘Like’ button.

3. Leverage your other existing social networks

Does your business have a strong Twitter network, vast with followers or have you built a following on Google+ already? Then utilize them to promote your Facebook business page. Some people prefer not to overlap similar social contacts on other accounts, but why diminish your chance to be noticed? Your followers can broadcast your message on both of their social platforms by reaching out to a greater audience about your business.

A brilliant example of this would be to use Twitter to promote a URL sharing day on your company Facebook page.

4. Integrate Facebook social plugins on your company website

It’s essential to have a main hub that combines all your social media activities. Your company’s website is the perfect place that gives you full control over content and brand management and all your social outlets.

Integrate Facebook social plugins to encourage connections such as Facebook’s Likebox, Like buttons, and Comment stream. If you have a WordPress website then you can use a variety of pre-built plugins to accomplish this task.

As Facebook visitors increase, your business page is more likely to show up on fans news feeds and those of their friends, prompting people to find out more about your Facebook business page.

5. Ask your friends, family and fans to like and share

Facebook has some easy to use ready-made sharing buttons with which people can promote your tabs and pages to their friends.  Place a shout-out or reminder to ‘Like’ your status updates and instruct fans to click that little ‘Share’ button next to your message, so their friends will be alerted about the update.

It’s difficult to start a Facebook business page with no engagement whatsoever. So why not send a few messages to your friends and family members who are supportive of your business? Ask them to help out in some discussions, reward them with publicity or return the favor. It’s easier to ask a friend or family member than a stranger if you’re worried about spamming people.

Make sure the question is interesting enough to get them talking. If you use your personal account and fan page strategically, you’ll discover a huge advantage of getting new friends to be your fans while they’re getting to know you better.

What else can your business do to grow a Facebook page?

• Using tagging and acknowledgments are great networking tools; status-tagging can even drive in new connections.  Tag an author or a popular Facebook page to draw attention, but only if you have good reason to do so. Also be sure to use the new Facebook #Hashtag features as well, as this makes it easy for future fans to find you when doing searches on Facebook.
• Participate outside your page by using the Facebook Directory and Facebook Search to locate other Facebook pages or groups in your niche and look for public discussions based on search terms related to your business.
• Finally, cut through the noise and let your message be heard.  Provide value and build credible relationships with your fans or supporters. There are many ways you can increase your Facebook fan base. What have you done to be “liked”? What rewards have you used?  What have you done to increase visitors to your Facebook fan page?  Let us know in the comments below.

What has worked to grow your following so far?