Although many businesses are using Facebook, few have really thought through the reasons and goals of being on Facebook. So let's step back for a second because if we return to the value we expect from Facebook then measuring the success of our content and setting a strategy become all the more clear. We're no longer just chasing a piece of string.

Why Is Your Business on Facebook?

1. Want to build a fan base (get likes)
2. Want to spread the word about your products/services (get engagement)
3. Want to capture data or dollars (get sales)

Why Facebook Then? 

1. People use Facebook. Lots of them. Total monthly active users are 1,310,000,000. (Fish where the fish are.)
2. Real consumer data is available through Insights, Graph Search and Power Editor. (Few other tools give you actionable marketing data for free.)
3. Custom Audiences, Web Custom Audience and Look-alike Audiences. (If you don't know what these are, you're missing out on the best part of Facebook.)
4. SEO benefits. (Although only a small benefit, social proof like inbound links to your website from social media can help with the discoverability of your content in search.)
5. Scaleability. (The cost per conversion, and cost in general, of using highly targeted Facebook ads is much lower and more effective than other forms of advertising right now. Plus the Power Editor helps you effectively market at sale with saved audiences, similar ads and image libraries.)

If Facebook is the right tool, then your strategy needs to be a mix of building up your fan base, sharing valuable relevant content that is worth being shared, liked or commented upon, and ensuring that you're building value outside of Facebook through email newsletter sign ups, sales, customer feedback surveys or other owned channels.

Where Should You Start? 

Get Likes

• Don't run contests or ads simply to get likes because you might up the number of non-engaged fans. Engagement on Facebook is key to your content's performance.
• To get more engaged fans, you want to spruce up your Facebook page so that first-time visitors and non-fans can immediately see who you are, what you offer and what value your posts will provide them.
• Seek out interest among your email newsletter subscribers. Include links to recent, noteworthy posts and ask for the Like. 
• Research your top Facebook updates and write a blog post around a topic or theme then embed relevant Facebook updates into the blog posts to help with discovery (getting new  page likes) and engagement (post likes, comments and shares) on those updates. 

Get Engagement

• Post timely, relevant content (View Facebook Insights > Post Tab > When Fans Are Online).
• Be a trusted source (and serve cheese with your broccoli). Post content that people want to share, comment on or like. This can be a mix of self promotional updates, noteworthy industry items and some fun. Don't forget the fun. Find memes that work for your business and add them to the mix. 
• If you're running a contest, include sharing incentives.

Get Sales

• Spend money to make money. If you're running ads, install the conversion tracking pixel and optimize for conversions vs. impressions or clicks. 
• Improve your attribution model. Use the Google URL Builder to tag links to your website that you share on Facebook. In Google Analytics you are then able to separate out content you shared from general Facebook referral traffic.
• If you're not doing ecommerce, then capture data. Make one of your Facebook tabs for email sign up. Run surveys, gather customer feedback, migrate people from Facebook to your owned channels.

Check out these other Facebook Resources, Tips & Ideas.