Over 600 million Facebook members are at your beck and call, making the market wide open to brand your business. Here’s five good features to include in your marketing on the site.

Let’s start with the best news for marketers: Facebook users are extreme brand loyalists willing to endorse their favorite products amongst their friends. The social network boasts a broad membership, — over 600 million users – that you can reach with minimal monetary outlay. So, where else can you spread the word so quickly, run your own ad hoc focus group and collect product input from existing and potential customers? Let’s start with what’s worth a thousand words — a picture.

1. High Resolution

Facebook photos are easy to overlook as an effective brand utility, especially now that high-resolution photos are on the site.  Some of what you need to know: you can upload high-res photos up to 2048 pixels wide and high.  This makes for immensely improved photo quality in JPG downloads, as well as print.  Reporters seeking your company’s images can easily find them on your Facebook page and download from there. Oscar de la Renta saw the value in pretty Facebook pictures, evidenced in the international designer’s recent perfume launch on the site, using colorful photos as part of the campaign. The brand’s page now reports 162,000 users, a 30 percent  increase in less than a week.  Tell me pictures don’t motivate purchasing action!

2. Focused Groups

The groups feature allows marketers to utilize these one-to-many communication channels for more efficient branding.You can group chat with other members, share notes on products and notify group members of product updates.  You can invite customers in for tailored feedback sessions to gain quick insight into product changes or events. Internet entrepreneur Marcelle Allen says it’s changed the way she does business online stating, “Within the last 2 months my habits on Facebook have completely changed.”  For the better, she says.  She can target particular members.

3. Riddle Me This

Facebook Questions is another new feature promoted to the same ranks as status updates, posting photos and sharing links. The  Q&A application lets page owners to answer questions on behalf of their business, with administrators able to post questions directly on their pages, and the activity surfaces in the news feeds of your Facebook fans. You ask the question, your friends can answer and their friends follow the Q&A session.  This activity surfaces in the news feeds of your Facebook fans.  You can also conduct a poll to gather opinions, not to mention sharing what you know about your product, in turn pointing potential customers in the right direction to drive your bottom line.   Best advice here is to avoid the hard sell, which can just as easily drive the potentials away.  Demonstrating your expertise in a gentle manner encourages them to listen.  Nobody loves a know it all (KIA—killed in action).

4. Places And Deals

How do you create a great digital footprint that actually leads to boots on the ground in your brick and mortar stores? Office Max already has a line on this technique, just announcing that the company will reward customers who check in at physical locations via Facebook places.  Do this on a smart phone, receive a value card and you’ll be entered into a sweepstakes to win free ink for a year. “We garner these Facebook ‘likes, get awareness out and give customers great value,” says Mark Andeer, vice president of brand strategy for OfficeMax. Place check-ins should be shared by your customers with their Facebook friends and posted to your place page;  then, you can allow for in-store check-ins at special events to get the customers through your doors.

5. Just For The Like Of It

Don’t forget the importance of those Facebook like buttons.  The better your content, the better the action in getting customers to like your page.  Integrating the like buttons into your company site is a great way to get referral traffic.  Sending out like invitations is a good way to invite everyone to the party. So, what do you think?  Let us know if you have other Facebook branding techniques.  Smart marketers are always one step ahead of the competition.

Readers, what do you think of this informal list of suggestions for marketers?