In our last post dedicated to Facebookin’ for business we talked about the blurry line between personal and professional. People (your customers) engage with the brands they love and abhor in increasingly public and interactive ways. Facebook’s Pages will help your brand join these ongoing conversations. You can engage your current and potential customers in one of today’s most popular social networking platforms. With more than 200 million users, you’re taking your message to the masses.

But you can’t preach and push. Facebook may give you the opportunity to interact with fans, but it’s up to you to keep them coming back for more. Below are a 4 simple ways to make the most of your Face time.

1. Update your status.

These short messages help you stay on the radar. Use them to draw attention to new developments or specials, share food-for thought-ideas, comical quips, or interesting quotes. The possibilities for status updates exceed the time you have to read this. Honestly, as long as it’s relevant to your customers and in keeping with your brand – feel free to experiment. It’s a human thing to do – and your goal here is to make a human connection.

2. Upload to engage.

A picture’s worth a thousand words… which is good because not everyone likes to read. Use photos, videos and links to connect with your fans. Tell a story. Preview a new product. Showcase an event. Facebook handles both photos and videos wonderfully, allowing people to comment on them and then share them with their own friends. Post links too. If you upload content on YouTube or update your blog, share the link with your fans and help drive traffic to those sites. (You can even configure the Notes section of Facebook to import updates from your blog.)

3. Stay active…but tempered. Facebook is not a passive, set it up and let it run itself activity. That said, don’t hog the conversation. You have to find that fine line of appropriate interaction. It’s a small target between your page gathering cobwebs and people hiding your posts because you won’t hush up. You want to be engaging, but not pushy. So, stay away from repetition and multiple postings in a short amount of time.

4. Keep up with your fans.

One of the most beautiful things about Facebook Pages – the Insights. These charts and graphs help you track how many new fans you have, page views, unique page views, demographics about your fans and much more. You’ll find a plethora of information here to help you gauge the effectiveness of your efforts. This tool – which is unique to Pages – can help you modify and optimize your content to make your Page better for your fans. Don’t overlook the value hidden under the Insights button. And don’t be afraid to make adjustments.

Keep these four basic tenets in mind as you build and then maintain your company’s Facebook Page. Certainly it can get more involved and complicated with integrated applications and alternate landing pages and whatnot. But let’s save that for later, because simple or complicated, at the end of the day, the goal remains the same: engage with your audience in a way that strengthens your brand.