You’ve finally decided to enter the social media fray and create a Facebook Page for your brand. Fantastic! Since you’re fairly web-savvy and it’s about as complicated as a monochrome Rubik’s Cube, you decide you don’t need a social media guru to do it, confident Facebook’s simple user interface will guide you through the process.

After a few mouse-clicks, there stands your brand-spanking new fanpage, with one fan – yourself. Lonely, isn’t it? Here then are 10 easy ways to grow your fanpage as organically as possible:

1. Suggest to Friends

Just below your fanpage picture you’ll find a link that says “Suggest to Friends”. This allows you to invite all of your friends on Facebook. Unfortunately, in the “Suggest to Friends” window Facebook hasn’t allowed a “Select All” feature. This is because the social network giant is trying to limit spamming and hopes that you will only select people that would have an interest in joining. Inviting all your friends is therefore a bit of a “click, click, scroll, click, click” mission, but it is worth it.

It needn’t stop there though – and this is the continuous tightrope you’ll be treading between spamming bastard and Facebook friend – because you need to encourage your friends to invite all of their friends. Don’t be too pushy though, a friendly request will do from time-to-time.

2. Link Seeding

As previously mentioned, there is a thin line between spam and being legitimate, so be careful. After suggesting to your Facebook friends, you should now be searching Facebook for similar interest groups and fanpages. Once similar pages are found, then make a relevant comment on the wall and provide a link to your group for further information. This should be a systematic daily chore. Additionally, use your own status updates to promote the link to your page. You can also seed your link off of Facebook in forums and comment sections on other websites, blogs and Twitter of course.

3. Promoting your Facebook Page

Social media is still an afterthought in many marketing campaigns, but these days it is essential to implement a fully-integrated campaign. This means that your social media efforts must be included in all your marketing collateral. For example, if you send out a newsletter, make sure you include a link to your Facebook Page. You can even send out a dedicated mail telling people about your Facebook presence. Make sure you also have a Facebook badge on your website. Include “Join us on Facebook” in your print, radio and TV ads. I’m still astounded by how few TV ads include Facebook, Twitter or even the website address.

4. Competitions and Promotions

A great way to increase membership is to run competitions and promotions on Facebook. There are many creative ways of doing this, but please take note of Facebook’s promotion guidelines. Many companies are actually running “illegal” promotions on Facebook.

Facebook doesn’t say what the consequences will be if you are caught out, but you could risk having your page banned, and losing everything you’ve worked to achieve in terms of membership.

5. Regular Updates

Creating a Facebook Page means that it must be administered correctly and provide value to people who join or “Like” it. It is NOT just a new channel to push out your crappy press releases. You must provide value in terms of content, information, personal interactivity and support. Make an effort to update ever day and try using different media – status updates, notes, discussions, videos and pictures. If possible, create shareable content that will further spread your page in the network.

In terms of value, please take note of this Adweek article which says: “A study of ‘digitally connected’ consumers found that over 40% are following brands on Twitter just because of exclusive offers or deals distributed by the brand on Twitter. The numbers are about the same for Facebook or MySpace, with 37% saying they had “friended” a brand in order to get special deals.”

People want value and it will also help grow your page when you offer social media specific deals. For example, give out a discount code on your Facebook Page. You will be able to track the success of these campaigns accurately as people will use the code to redeem the discount.

6. Cross-Platform Pollination

You can cross-pollinate from your other social media efforts. If you’re posting videos on YouTube or Zoopy, make sure you include a clickable link in the video to join your Facebook Page. You can also link your Facebook and Twitter accounts so that any Facebook update gets published on Twitter too. This will drive your Twitter followers to your Facebook page and vice-versa.

7. Social Bookmarking

Use the same SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) principles that you use to promote your website. Submit your Facebook Page to social bookmarking sites like Delicious, Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Stumbleupon and others.

8. Email Signatures

You’ve got your contact details in your email signature, but most people don’t include their Twitter or Facebook links in there. If you’ve got a couple of thousand employees, imagine how much exposure your page will get if the link to your brand’s Facebook Page is in every single email they send?

9. Events

Events are a great way to get exposure as it promotes the “Invite Friends” functionality on Facebook. Consider sponsoring a local band or DJ, or throw a charity event, and then you can promote it on your Facebook Page and encourage members to invite their friends.

10. Advertising

I’ve left the most effective way of promoting your group until last. Facebook ads are incredibly effective as they offer granular targeting. You can specify keywords, geo-location, age groups, gender and more. Additionally, they offer great reporting tools to optimise your campaigns, manage your budget, and report back on effectiveness.