So you have a nice new Facebook Page for your business. But how can it make your cash register ring?

Here are a few steps to get started:

1. Place a Facebook “Become a Fan” button on your website, so your site visitors can find your Page.

2. Ask all of your Facebook friends, employees and family members to “Fan” your new business Page on Facebook. Post a link to your new page on your personal profile and ask your friends to post it on their profiles.

3. Tell your customers  “Fan us on Facebook!”  (Share news of your new page with your customer email list.)

4. Once you get 50 fans, ask Facebook for a “vanity” URL (or link to your page). Here’s why. When you first create your Facebook Page, its link is long and full of numbers and symbols.  A “vanity URL” that looks something like this — www.facebook.com/mybizname — is much easier to share and remember.

5. Offer some generous coupons on your Page so your fans will be motivated to share them with their friends. Theis can generate traffic and new customers.

6. Consider advertising on Facebook. This may be the fastest way to reach new customers. You can target Facebook users by the words they’re using with friends (“spa,” “facial,” “baggy eyes”), by their age, their interests and more, combined with very precise geographic terms — within 1, 2, or 5 miles of your store address, or where you know your best customers live. Steer them to your website to book some services, or to your Facebook Page to collect monthly special coupons.

7. Lather, rinse, repeat — cha-ching.

With meetings in nine world capitols this year, the eMetrics Summit attracts web analysts, business intelligence experts and marketing managers, who share wisdom on how to increase the return on online investment.

Dennis Yu, CEO of BlitzLocal, and Gillian Muessig, co-founder and president of SEOMoz, will demonstrate how to adapt standard web methods to track form completions, shopping cart checkouts and phone calls to the Facebook environment.

Yu and Muessig will show how to use Facebook’s own Insights tool to add a social dimension to analytics. They will also address the pros and cons of using modifications of Google Analytics and tools from other providers.

With more than 150,000 members, SEOmoz is the world’s brand leader in search marketing software tools, education, resources and community. The company’s flagship product, Linkscape, powers SEO tools and applications such as OpenSiteExplorer.org, RavenTools, and many more.

Muessig has provided keynotes and sessions for conferences around the world on the state and future of search marketing as well as technical issues. This month she launches “Getting Down to Business,” a new program on Webmaster Radio.

In 2006, Yu co-founded BlitzLocal, a Denver area firm that provides local search solutions for enterprises of all sizes. Clients include J.C. Penney, Equifax and Yahoo!, as well as local professional service providers, national franchises and non-profit groups.

An entrepreneur and internationally recognized lecturer in search engine marketing, Yu is an expert in search marketing technical analysis and pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign development and optimization. He has written widely on the industry, been featured on National Public Radio and has counseled the Federal Trade Commission on privacy issues for social networks.

Researching Facebook’s site was the most fun I’ve had at work in a long time.   I wasn’t nearly as familiar with Facebook as some of my friends.  The site is so addicting I’m not sure I want to know it too much better than I do now… Some of my Facebook savvy friends had hundreds of friends and were sending me Mafia Wars weapons, IQ Quizzes, and cause invitations before I even ‘friended’  my wife and daughter.   The quizzes are entertaining, the games are worse than crack, and the ability to re-connect with long lost friends sucked me in.  The site combines the best features of classmates.com, linkedin.com, Picasa, (photo sharing) chat, charities, fan clubs, causes, and games.  Additionally Facebook brings all the best features of these sites to a new viral level.  But the one thought that kept nagging at me was: folks on Facebook are not there to research products so how can we reach them while they’re socializing on this site?  The marketing challenges seem insurmountable:

• Finding my B2B audience among the 250 Million
• Getting their attention while they’re ‘playing’
• Not interrupting or peeving them in the process

Facebook’s Headquarters in Palo Alto have all the trappings of a typical Silicon Valley start up: high ceilings with exposed ventilation ducts, a gourmet kitchen open all hours, and a virtual United Nations of employees all spread out in desk areas without walls.  None of them appears older than 28, and some are moving about on skateboards and razors on smooth concrete floors.  Our conference room was a candy colored assortment sofas that swallow your bottom surrounding a 60-inch LCD TV serving as our demo screen.  Despite the trendy trappings, Facebook had much more substance than met the eye.

One of the mid twenty somethings presented to us that Facebook an incredible lineup of user demographics and can target them on no less than 19 different parameters including:

1. Country
2. State
3. Age
4. Gender
5. Interests
6. Activities
7. Music
8. TV Shows
9. Education
10. High School
11. College
12. Major
13. Workplace
14. Relationship status
15. Books
16. Moms/Parenting
17. Small Business
18. Pet Enthusiasts
19. Sports

Demographics didn’t quite convince me but I was getting warmer.  Facebook connects more than just people to people; it connects:

• People to companies
• People to organizations
• People to products
• People to classmates
• People to social groups
• People to causes
• People to hobbies and interests
• People to brands

While all this reconnecting/socializing/chatting/sharing/gaming is going on, the viral aspect of Facebook is also thrown into the mix. Word of mouth is powerful.

For example, when someone goes out to eat, buys a car or any product or service for that matter, do they trust the reviews they see on Yahoo!, Cars.com, or Amazon?  No disrespect to these fine websites, but I don’t trust their reviews any more than I trust restaurant reviews from TV “Phantom Diners.”  Disappointing sushi shops are more the rule than the exception when I believe American restaurant critics who purport to know something about sushi.  The fact is, I trust my friends, especially my very meticulous Japanese friend’s sushi restaurant recommendations.  So when I’m connected to friends on Facebook and one of them recommends a good sushi shop, they’ll usually tell a friend.  That friend tells friends and soon the word on the best sushi shop spreads around like a virus.

Now let’s take that virus and multiply it.  Let’s say the sushi shop we’re raving about runs an ad on Facebook with a $10 off coupon.  My friends are more inclined to click on the ad because of my recommendation.  CTR and Conversions increase because the social context increases the probability of intent to purchase, (by a multiple).  Ok, I’m getting warmer, but it’s still a B2C example.  What about B2B?

Through Facebook’s Pages, businesses can create a page to connect with customers and create a community.  Company X can, through Event Ads, let its community know that it’s attending the next Comdex or E3.   The company can run an ad on its corporate page with a lottery for a prize to be announced at its booth.  Company X could have speaker announcements on its Facebook Page.  Why would a company want to do this?  Company Fan Sites or Corporate site Pages are Voices – 1/3 of your fans will see what you put up on your site.  30% of your fans will read what you’ve launched on their individual home page.  If they comment on that announcement on their wall, it’s seen by all their friends following their comments.  How’s that for reach?

Engagement Advertisements

On the right side of the home page, (Engagement Ads) “become a fan,” Ads can be video, static, Users can comment on ads or video on the user’s profile page.

Celebrities and Industry Experts

Company X can capitalize on its unique content and celebrities.  If Company X has industry experts who’ve published technical articles and how-to application notes, it can feature these experts as Celebrities on Facebook.  If your company has a celebrity or expert who can create fresh content for you, that content can be launched as an update on the corporate Facebook page or the expert can have his or her own Facebook page.

Favorite Pages Application

The Favorite Pages Application can be used as a corporate sponsor.  The Afflac Duck fan site posts photos of the Duck visiting famous places all over the world such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the pyramids of Giza.  All the photos posted on the site of course are taken from the Duck’s perspective, i.e., from 1 foot off the ground.

If Facebook is the social networking site where everyone is, why not take advantage of the fact by becoming part of it?  The B2B aspect became clear: start a corporate Facebook page, populate it with useful unique content that users can’t get anywhere else, and make sure the content drives traffic to and from the corporate web site.  Facebook Profiles enable brands to connect with fans.  Videos, Comments and interactions get organically put back on users sites.  Companies can ask users for feedback.  They can make an offer once a day and make a pitch in the voice of a character

• Papa John’s Pizza gained millions of impressions and 130k fans in 24 hours
• They thanked the fans with exclusive offers – and the redemption rate was higher than email offers
• Built brand loyalty

I’m convinced.  Now can I convince my colleagues at work?

Meanwhile, I’ll just have some fun.