For the Internet community, this year took off with a boost to social networking by the just introduced feature of Facebook Likes; already, we started witnessing massive media coverage on Facebook likes towards the end of the previous year, and it appears that Facebook Likes are here to stay. It is necessary to concentrate on increasing your business’s Facebook Likes this year.

Facebook "Likes" are getting increasingly important to online businesses. A Facebook Like is a score, and this score can be viewed as well as shared by people and their friends – this enables viral marketing of a particular service or product.

Also, Facebook Likes have become officially vital to search engine results, and we have heard that Likes are starting to be vital as a form of backlinks and can substantially influence how a business ranks in search engine results.

In the recent past, every social media marketing workshop has one relevant question to answer : "How can we increase Facebook Likes?".

Here are valuable tips that will help you increase your business Facebook Likes:

• Embark on marketing in all current media platforms

Ensure that you market your Facebook fan page and its benefit both in your online and offline marketing platforms and materials. A good way to do this is to ensure that you have a link on your website, blog, emails, as well as email signatures for your employees. Don’t forget to integrate your Facebook page always in your offline marketing tools – e.g. magazine/newspaper, POS signage, business cards, shopping bags and others.

• Put up a contest

If you desire to increase your Facebook likes quickly, an excellent way to achieve this is to put up a contest and accompany it with enticing giveaways. For example, people that ‘Like’ your page within the next 12 days will qualify to the drawing for free merchandize or a $100 gift card. Have a target such as acquiring up to 1,000 fans in 12 days. It’s also a great idea to remind people to recommend your page to their own friends and qualify for additional entry in the contest.

• Make an offer that people can’t let go

Accompanying your fan request with an enticing offer is a better way to achieve reasonable success in building your Facebook Likes. Ensure that your offer is as clear as possible. Make an offer that your customers would find difficult to let go. Just a little but needed offer will go a long way to pacify your fans and make them loyal – they will also work hard to bring you more fans.

Ensure that you build your business Facebook Likes on a massive scale in 2011, this would help you have a substantial business growth.