As a Public relations professional, I am constantly browsing the web for stories on trends in communications and the web. I recently came across a post published by the Social Media Examiner titled “13 Ways to move Your Facebook Fans to Action.” Facebook has grown as a valuable marketing and communications tool for businesses in a broad range of industries from record labels to outsourced IT providers. What good is a tool of you don’t know how to use it? Here are the Social Media Examiner’s 13 tips for how to make the most our of your fan page, that will lead to results:

1. Ask questions: try ending your status update with a question. This way you are starting a conversation, and much more likely to get fans to post comments on your post. Plus, you can learn more about your current or potential client.
2. Use the words “you” or “your”: you are making your post about them, the customer, rather than yourself, getting them involved.
3. Keep it short: your fans are more likely to respond to your post when it is easy to read.
4. Post in high traffic windows: get to know when your fans are the most active on Facebook. You may want to try posting between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. in your time zone.
5. Respond promptly: “Do your best to respond to fan questions (as wall posts) as promptly as possible. If you find you can’t keep up with the volume of questions, offer a free teleseminar or webinar where you answer the top questions for your fans.”
6. Address fans by name: reply to your fans comments often using the “@” tag before their name.
7. Comment yourself: add a comment to your post to get the conversation started, but not too soon. “I often find that the comments come more freely when you allow your fans to run by themselves initially.”
8. Thank your fans: “acknowledge your fans often with simple thanks. Genuine recognition goes a *long* way!”
9. Surprise your fans: not all of your posts have to be about your company, product, or service. Every once in a while provide an inspirational comment or quote, or link to an interesting story. This helps to keep your fans engaged.
10. Use @ tagging: use the “@” tag to directly link to the page of a fan, group, or event. “When appropriate, and used sparingly, @ tags can be a very powerful way to have your post show up on others’ walls, which gives you more exposure and brings more fans or potential fans back to engage.”
11. Use the discussion board: give your fans a place to communicate among each other. Fans want a place to self promote, and your page can be an outlet for this. Try starting 3 to 5 discussion topics when you build your page, so the discussion tab is not blank.
12. Send updates to fans: “Each tab on your fan page and each discussion thread topic has its own unique URL. To bring fans back to your page to contribute to a discussion and get them more engaged, send out an update with a call to action and specific link. (To find the Update feature, click Edit Page under your image then look for Send Update to Fans on the right of your Admin page.)”
13. Monitor insights: “Facebook uses algorithms to calculate your Post Quality as determined by the percentage of your fans who engage when you post content, calculated on a rolling seven-day basis. The number of stars depends on how your Post Quality compares to similar pages.”

An important tip that applies to so many communications tools to remember is that content is king. “As you build up your fan base, consistently add quality, relevant content and engage your fans. You’ll start to see results that translate into an increase in brand awareness and positive brand sentiment, email and blog subscribers, and of course, sales and paying customers.”