More and more companies are embracing Facebook by creating a unique Facebook Page for their company on the 320+ million user social networking giant. The increasing adoption of Facebook for companies should come as no surprise as Facebook is reporting approximately 500,000 new users signup for their social network daily. The challenge, of course, is once you start a Page, how do you get more fans? Fans, after all, are what make having a page worth it, and give companies the opportunity to begin to engage new clients. We’ve put together a list of the 5 most common ways companies are growing the number of fans they have.

1) Giving away freebies for participation

Restaurants have been particularly aggressive with the idea of the “food for fans” model, as Outback Steakhouse, Whole Foods, Starbucks and many others are offering free food for becoming a fan. Contests have proven to be another great way to use free products or services in a more conservative manner to pull in new fans.

2) Exclusive content

Making your fans feel special and involved is a big piece of the engagement puzzle. When your fans become involved, this explodes the viral potential of your Page. Every comment, like, or post has the potential to show your Page to all of your fans friends. Exclusive content lets fans know they’re not just part of another marketing message. BestBuy and The Office do a great job of this.

3) Make your page a resource

Give your current customers a reason to keep coming back to your page and they will be more inclined to share your Page with their friends. When you create a Page that adds legitimate value to its fans, like Harris Teeter offering coupons and nutritional information.

4) Add your Facebook Page address to all communications

We know. It sounds simple and silly but you would be surprised how much adding your Page URL to e-mail and other customer communication messaging can help boost your fan numbers, giving you even more opportunity to communicate with them.

5) Buy your fans

It’s not as altruistic as the other ways to get fans on Facebook, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t as effective. Facebook allows you to run an “ad” that can be targeted to very specific demographics with very specific interests. What’s more, you can run ads on Facebook that are specific to building your fans, placing a “become a fan” link in the ad itself.

These certainly aren’t the only ways to improve the number of Facebook fans you have. Have you experimented with any other methods? Share in the comments!