Facebook is a great way to communicate with all of your current friends and old classmates you haven’t seen in years, as well as a savvy method for interacting with your customers. There are drawbacks, however; when it comes to social networking, people tend to network with those they already know, as opposed to making an effort to “grow” their network.

Facebook pages and groups grow by the thousands each day.  Members “Like” a page or join a group based on common interests.  Now, with Facebook’s newest feature, the ability to ‘Like’ a comment eases the process of meeting new people and networking with them.

Here are some tips on how to venture out of your network and get more out of Facebook:

Join a group

Groups are a simple way to find people with common interests.  Groups are different than a page, because there are group moderators that approve and decline members.  Make use of the feature that allows users to “Like” a comment in order to to let other group members know that you are active and interested in what they have to say.  You may get a few friend invites and/or more connections on your own Facebook page.

Connect with a business or product and engage

You may already “Like” some pages for a company or product that you are interested in, but in order to make use of your connection, you have to engage in the conversation.  If your company has a page, you already know the number of connections you have doesn’t mean anything if people aren’t talking.  Create a wall post and interact with people who respond.  “Like” a comment, and you never know, you may have a new friend request waiting to be approved.

Share your thoughts on photos and videos

You may not be able to comment on a photo in which you’ve been tagged if the person who posted it isn’t one of your friends. However, you are able to share that picture with your friends.  People like to know that what they have posted is getting some attention, and commenting on the pictures your friends post is a perfect way to do so.

Facebook use is increasing daily.  In order to get the most out of it, you have to come out of your social media shell.  Venturing outside of your network may be a bit intimidating at first, but it will be worth it in the end.

The company, uSocial.net targets “connections” based on your basic demographic preferences.  They’ll bring people to your page so that you won’t have to spend time doing it yourself.

The concept sounds good, but there are potential pitfalls.

Social media is supposed to be social.  The communication between people in your network is the engine that drives the interaction of your network.  Being able to have that one-on-one dialogue at the beginning stage of your page is critical because you really get to know your customers.

A large part of being involved in creating your network is learning how your connections communicate with one another. Learning their lingo allows you to talk with them — not to them.

But what happens when your connections begin to disconnect?

Pages lose “connections” all the time for various reasons.  If you’ve never spent the time trying to get recruit connections, then you’re not going to know how to replace the ones lost.

Ultimately, what are the consequences of paying for connections?  What if the turnover rate proves you wasted your money because you could never establish a real connection with your customers?

A service like this works for companies who are more interested in quantity than quality.

Whether you’re trying to increase your following on Twitter, connections on Facebook or subscribers on YouTube, you want to know who is in your network, what they talk about, and what their “social reputation” is.

Including the purchase of a few thousand “connections” in your social media marketing plan may be an easy way to spread your message, but that page will have to be managed after the initial launch.

If you only saw your connections as demographics in the beginning, how will you value and interact with them once they are brought to your page?

Facebook is changing the way users interact with brands.  Before, you could become a fan of a company or product.  Now, the “Become a Fan” button will be replaced with a “Like” button and you will be a “Connection” rather than a “Fan”.

According to Facebook, users click the “Like” button almost twice as much as they do “Become a fan” on a daily basis.  This new change will help brands accumulate “Connections” quicker, but may end up leaving Facebook users confused.

The change will no longer allow brands to communicate with users who “like” a particular post, photo or link.  Only users who “like” a page itself will see updates in their news feed and notifications.

The change Facebook is making will also affect advertisements.

The “Like” button and a thumbs up icon will replace the “Become a Fan” button, in the advertisement.

Facebook does not plan to openly communicate the change with its users, so there will be some confusion about the difference between “liking” a page versus “liking” a page’s update.  Inevitably, users will subscribe to pages they didn’t want or intend to — for example, people may click the “Like” button on an ad thinking they are liking the business or product, when they are actually subscribing to the updates without being redirected to the page.

This new change will increase the amount of engagement ads purchased on Facebook.  Since “liking” content is a much easier process than becoming a fan, users will be apt to click an ad that has a “Like” button rather than an ad inviting them to “Become a Fan”.

Even though Facebook is not communicating the change to their users, businesses should update their current “fans” on the changes. ”Become a Fan” verbiage on creative, blogs and websites will soon be irrelevant, but “Find us on Facebook” always works.

What is FBML?  Facebook Markup Language, FBML for short, is simply HTML for Facebook.  FBML allows you to take HTML coding and insert it into the FBML application.  Facebook does its magic on the back end, and your fan page will never look the same.

Sound easy enough?

Unfortunately, you can’t just copy the coding on your website and paste it into Facebook.  You have to keep your coding within the Facebook wall size in order for your images to appear.

FBML allows your Facebook page to act as a landing page or microsite.  Using Facebook for a landing page or microsite saves you money because you don’t have to host the page on your server and don’t have to pay for a domain name.

Below are a few examples of fan pages using FBML:

Wendy’s ‘Get the Party’

SeaWorld’s Photo Adventure

Donato’s Pizza

Sunkist Soda

As you can see, your Facebook page can be customized to fit your business or product.  How will you spice up your Facebook page?

When you create a Facebook page, one of the first suggestions Facebook makes is to promote your page with an ad.  Facebook ads are good for targeting a specific audience and some companies have found that advertising on Facebook does work.

Facebook ads are subtle, off to the side and look just like a page suggestion. People click on page suggestions all the time, especially if one of their friends is a fan. But, why spend the money when you can create a fan page for free?

Just like anything in life, there are pros and cons to Facebook ads and Facebook pages.

Facebook pages are free, and any time a fan interacts with your page, it goes into their news feed for all their friends to see.  You can create a fan page in just about 20 minutes and then you’re off to recruiting fans and creating fun polls, quizzes and top five favorites to engage your fans.

The biggest problem businesses have with Facebook pages is growing their fan base and getting those fans talking to talk. Here is where creative content comes into play.  Using FBML and contests are great ways to prompt your fans to interact with your page.

It may take a while to grow your fan count, but here’s where you can really target your brand loyalists and educate those fans who are just getting familiar with your company.

Advertising on Facebook makes your fan page grow quicker.  If you have a product that will be available for a limited time, and you have created a fan page for it, then spend some money on Facebook ads to get the word out as quickly as possible.

You can target the audience you want to receive the message, but you have to remember that once you’re out of money, no more ads will be displayed and your campaign is over. If one person clicks on your ad 15 times a day, that’s 15 potential fans you missed.

Advertising on Facebook does get your message out there, but there’s a price for it. Creating a fan page and using Twitter, LinkedIn, your company blog and other social media networks you are on to recruit fans may take a little time, but it costs you nothing extra.

Is there any real benefit to advertising on Facebook?  Sure.  But, what’s it worth to you if your most important customers are getting lost in the multitudes of fans Facebook ads attract?