In todays episode we have no guest! I'm in the middle of a move from Boston to San Francisco and it's rather hectic to put it mildly. =P

Instead, in show #49, I walk  you through step by step on how I help clients (and ourselves) grow a fan base on Facebook.

I try my hardest to keep the show and this blog as practical as possible. Giving you actionable stuff that you can implement today and see results. I think this episode delivers on just that.

We are looking for additional guests for the show, if you'd like to see one of your favorite marketers interviews for an upcoming episode, please drop us a line.

Without further ado, enjoy the show:

This episode is all about how to seed Facebook fan page growth.

I've done my best to cut out the cookie cutter BS that you typically see out there and kept the meat (and tactics) that I have implemented to grow an active facebook fan page.

Disclaimer - if you haven't optimized conversion paths on your site first, do not spend your waking life trying to grow your facebook fan page first.

The entire point of growing a Facebook fan page (minus some auxiliary ones) is to siphon that traffic and get people into your site. If you haven't set up content offers, calls to action, and landing pages to convert those visitors into leads... hold off on this step until you do.

1. Use the greasemonkey firefox plugin and the Facebook Invite them all script

Firefox may not be my favorite browser anymore, but it can still pack a punch.

Download the greasemonkey firefox plugin and the facebook invite them all user script and use it to get your friends, colleagues, coworkers, family to quickly and easily invite their networks to like your page.

Watch the video above or check out the tutorial on how to set that up here: http://www.davidwells.tv/how-to-seed-build-facebook-fans-for-facebook-business-pages/

2. Use a light-box popup on highly trafficked pages

Love them or hate them, light-box popups work. There is really no other way to state it.

Identify your highly trafficked pages on your site and add in a light-box popup that includes the one click facebook like box.

Dan Zarrella recently published some research on the topic showing that his signup rate doubled with a light-box popup, there are other case studies that come to a similar conclusion.

I have also seen a tremendous difference with and without the popup running on highly trafficked pages.

3. Like and engage with larger pages with similar interests (and fans)

This one is pretty simple, yet most folks don't implement it.

Go out there and find every single facebook fan page in your industry, then look for tangental pages that are somewhat relevant, and like them all as your page.

What this will do is start populating your facebook stream (again when you are using facebook as your page) with the content and conversations that people are engaged with.

Once you start throwing your two cents into the mix and liking insightful comments from other folks, they are going to get that facebook notification and check out your page.

If your page is sparse and full of automated post garbage, you can bet they aren't going to become a fan. So follow the next tip closely.

4. Create daily sharable posts & content

The content on your page that you are sharing is a very important consideration.

Most companies will autofeed their facebook fan page with the RSS feed from their blog or hook up twitter to automatically update the facebook fan page.

Being this lazy has no place in creating a likeable fan page. Turn off your automation and develop a solid content strategy.

Check out a previous episode with John Haydon sharing how he develops an amazingly engaging facebook content strategy.

We have taken his advice to heart and have seen a definite uptick in shares, likes, and oh yea TRAFFIC via facebook.

5. Give them something

Content offers are very effective motivators to get people to like your facebook fan page.

We created the Facebook Like to Download App for this exact reason. The app will allow you to like gate a particular link, which could be a pdf document, video, mp3, or link to a thank you page where they can download the deliverable.

In order for the visitor to get that valuable piece of content they will have you like your fan page or any other URL you specify from your site.