Most businesses know enough to establish a fan page and accrue likes, but what about taking it to the next level?

Here are some ways to mobilize fans beyond the like stage and encourage them to take action — namely, getting them to buy your product and become loyal to your brand.

Each click is a fan with the potential to interact and serve as brand influencers, early adopters and a pocket sales force. Here’s some good advice on mobilizing fans beyond the like.

Sow Local Communities

Retailer Kohl’s and its Care for Kids program got a boost and fan involvement by creating a custom application that allowed Facebook fans to get involved by posting their own photos, adding comments and then voting for the school of their choice, which would eventually receive part of a $10 million pie allotted to 20 deserving schools across the nation. Posts increased by 400 each day and 12 million votes were cast.

Become A Destination

Even the NBA got the ball rolling — asking playoff fans to post their favorite play from the previous night’s playoff game on Facebook, and then asking others to vote for the best video. It upped the fan base and boosted ratings for the games.

Plan Events

Flash mobs organized on Facebook have been in play for awhile;  trendy and fun, they’re a quick way to involve lots of people with minimal effort and huge payout. Recently, retailer H & M introduced a new line of children’s clothing with kids dancing in San Francisco’s Union Square.

Skittles has an ongoing media program called Mob the Rainbow playing off their multi-color candies. It’s responsible for raising thousands in scholarship money for a deserving student to attend bowling college, just by 100,000 fans hitting the like button. It didn’t do too much for the candy maker… other than quadrupling Facebook likes to more than 14 million fans.

Kraft foods wasn’t too far behind, asking Facebook fans to pass the football down the virtual field, each time donating a meal to the hungry. Ten meals per passing drive added up to more than 200,000 meals donated to Feeding America.

So, with a little thinking outside of the box and leveraging Facebook, you really can move beyond the like and entice customers to love what you do.

Source: All Facebook