Your brand’s Facebook profile is set up, and you’re ready to reach the masses. Friends, family, and loyal customers have already “liked” what you have to offer on Facebook. Now you’re looking to harness the social element of this platform in hopes of seeing your numbers soar. So what now?

Maybe you’re all about the numbers and looking to grow your social media fan base by leaps and bounds. Perhaps you want to collect information from potential new customers to market to over time. A growing number of companies, both large and small, are turning to Facebook-hosted campaigns to achieve these objectives.

Are Facebook promotions the right direction for your business?

By understanding and defining the goal of your campaign, you can better decide which Facebook promotion is right for you. Let’s break down the three basics to help you better understand which is best:

Facebook Sweepstakes: These types of promotions are seen far and wide across hundreds of industries. Easy to execute and with little barrier of entry, Facebook Sweepstakes are very successful if your key performance indicator (KPI) is email collection. Facebook Sweepstakes are typically low in cost and high in entry, but it’s important to keep in mind that this easy set-up and execution also comes with a lack of customer engagement and a true understanding of whose emails you are now armed with.

Tip: If you’re looking to reach a broad audience, cross-promote your sweepstakes on Twitter (via hashtag) and social bookmarking sites (with the sweepstakes tag).

Facebook Deals: Often the most shared with friends and family, Facebook Deals usually call for a user to “like” a page or perform some other action to receive a coupon code or Facebook-specific special offer. This could range from a percentage off on a specific item in your store to free shipping.

Tip: Want the deal to be shared far and wide, thus increasing your brand recognition and site traffic? Make the offer enticing enough so users feel like they’re helping out their fellow man by sharing. The more robust your deal, the more viral it will go.

Facebook Contests: Typically, these promotions include a higher barrier of entry and, therefore, yield more information collected from the entrant and a better prize. Facebook Contests can include comments to a posed prompt or photo submissions and video responses as a mode of entry. Facebook Contests often call for additional information outside of the typical name and email address entry method. The benefit? True, interested entrants, resulting in potential sales leads who are much more invested in your brand.

Tip: Take your newfound data a step further. Studying this information can prove to be valuable market research and can even be turned into great fodder for Facebook ads targeting.

By asking yourself what you’d like to receive from a Facebook promotion, and then executing a targeted campaign, you’ll soon build a solid base of “likes” or email leads, resulting in brand evangelists that will be excited to share your promotions and purchase your products.

Jacqueline Simard is senior accounts manager at Blastmedia, where a version of this story first appeared. You can follow her on Twitter @jacqsays.

(Image via)