It's no surprise to anyone who has a computer or watches the evening news that Facebook is the king of social media platforms to date. With over 750 million users and still growing Facebook doesn't look as if it's going anywhere soon either. Everyone from small business owners to local nightly news affiliates and of course even bloggers are using Facebook to market their viewers or followers. The question is are they using Facebook correctly to advertise their business. It's not as simple as making a few comments here and there you actually have to engage your fans. I have collaborated a Top Seven List of Facebook Marketing Tips to share with you. Most of the tips come from my own trial and errors along the way. Please comment below if you would like to add some of your own ideas or let me know what you think of my list.

1) Give them a reason to "Like" you

So when I started my 1st Facebook Fan Page three years ago I had no idea where to begin. GIVE THEM SOMETHING FOR FREE!!! If you tell your fans that if they "Like" your page they are going to receive something special and for free you will increase your fan base.

2) Ask simple questions

Questions as simple as "What's your favorite color" or "Is it sunny where you are today?" will receive more responses than hard hitting questions will. Our local news affiliate asks "How's it looking outside?" almost weekly and every time it has some of the most comments. People enjoy the simpleness of the questions and we are world of fast movers and most of these questions can be answered in one simple word.

3) Engage with them

If you ask a simple question you can always reply with a simple answer yourself. People want to know that you are listening to them. I had to learn this the hard way. Someone actually called me out on it and to be honest I was so tied up with other things going on that I just forgot one of the most important rules.

4) Post other relevant news

Something that I find helpful is to share other relevant new information with my fans. Sure your not going to promote other companies necessarily but you should talk about other news that is related to your brand or the industry you are in. Maybe you sell air conditioners, try talking about the weather or ways to improve your home. Just make sure it involves your brand or is related to your industry.

5) Run a contest

Once again who doesn't love the chance of getting something for free. The key to this is making sure that you announce your plans to your fans early. The first time I ran a contest I didn't mention it and created an epic fail. The second time around I announced it twice daily for three days and had a much larger response than in my first attempt. Another way would be to create a separate page and direct your fans there.

6) Create a Creative Facebook Page

You want to give your fans an creative page to look at. Sure it's not boring to look at your wall all day (I've done it) but when I look at a companies page I want it to look like a companies page. Not some boring Facebook wall. If you are not a designer or have little time there are sites out there that will create a clean looking splash page for your site for no charge and rather quickly. I use Pagemodo and have found their free pages very elegant.

7) Don't over market yourself

I'm not saying that you shouldn't engage your fans daily or don't put yourself on every site possible. Just don't try to sell to them all day long. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to only market yourself and not talk about other things. You don't want your page to look like an inbox of spam now do you? I honestly hope that this tip is pretty self explanatory and needs no further discussion.