Having a brand with over a million Facebook ‘Likes’ is nothing special anymore it seems, with one-third of brands tracked by Retail Marketing Report now counting in the seven figures. For many of these consumer brands, growth in Facebook ‘Likers’ continues to climb.

How do these companies grow their Facebook following? Well, to no one’s surprise, its good to be a brand.

In order to increase the number of people who “Like” their company’s Facebook page, take a page out of Kirkland’s playbook and run a contest offering a $25,000 prize. This promotion increased their tally by 200,000. It calculates out to $0.125 per like. If your company doesn’t have that sort of promotional budget, even a simple contest built around a highly sought after tech toy, amusement park tickets, or whatever is appropriate for your target market.

Contests can seem quite daunting though given the legal restrictions by various states, the site’s terms of service, and internal company expertise and headcount allocation restrictions. One resource that can make a Facebook or Twitter contest manageable is wildfireapp.com.

Another good technique for a business is to offer a discount for a customer’s next (or first) purchase. People love deals, and if you incent their participation on Facebook, then it becomes a win-win proposition.

While Kirklands proved Facebook ‘likers’ could be bought cheap, Build-a-Bear Workshop and Pottery Barn Kids demonstrated brands can grow just by inviting fans to share stories and pictures by keeping their Facebook open to customer contributions. Between March and May 2011 Build-a-Bear Workshop increased their follower base by 137%, and Pottery Barn Kids grew by 98%. This data is from Media Logic’s June 2011 Retail Marketing Report, which tracks the top 100 retailers performance on Facebook and Twitter.

Another critical way to build your Facebook traffic is by advertising. Facebook servers about one third of all banner ads on the Internet, take advantage of their reach and excellent targeting capabilities.

One key tip for growing your company’s Facebook traffic; Ask for the Like. If you have a inbound or outbound sales or CRM team, have them collect the data on clients. Mention your Facebook page on your packing slips and give them a reason to Like you. Make sure your Facebook and other social media pages are highly visible on your webpages. Don’t be shy; think of the link for a Facebook ‘Like’ as being one of your most important call-to-actions on your webpage and a great foot-in-the-door question for your sales team. Create a sales campaign for your sales team around building Facebook followers. Incent your sales team and they will build your list for your company.

Build your brand Facebook page for first time visitors or 1 time campaigns. Most people will never return to your Facebook page after the first visit, unless you make your page engaging, relevant, and valuable (think contest, coupon, or community sharing). Coke and RedBull have particularly good Facebook pages. For the most part, your Facebook conversations will occur on the customer’s news feed, or possible on the group pages.

Finally, make sure your posting information is informative, but not too frequent. An once-a-day posting schedule on Facebook may turn out to be more than necessary. But certainly don’t make your postings all you talking about ‘Your Brand’. The more you can get readers to participate, the more active your community will become. Social media is a conversation–think of it as a cocktail party mixer, it is not a podium for shouting at the customer. Talk about what is happening in the industry, trends that are relevant to your customers, events you will be attending–anything but selling your product. A 1:10 ration is a good yardstick. For every 10 general comments you can promote your brand 1 time on your Facebook page.

Building a brand’s following is just the beginning. Facebook can become a direct marketing medium for your company by Likers with a steady stream of informative posts, promotions, games, contests, and other engaging communications. Several apparel retailers like Lane Bryant and Fashion Bug have created a following of brand advocates through a steady stream of targeted communications.

What best practices have you seen by brands to build their Facebook ‘Likes’?