Collecting Facebook fans has become a big goal for many small businesses. If you have a page for for your business, I'm sure you've seen the "ladders" where each person likes some of the pages on a status in order to have their likes returned, leading to a bloated and inaccurate valuation of a Facebook page. Like any other marketing channel, Facebook needs to have a ROI. While the page is free, you are still taking either your valuable time, or paying somebody else to manage your page. This means that you need to treat Facebook like your other marketing campaigns. So far, no studies have been done to determine how offline sales are affected by the social network. The best thing to do is treat Facebook like an email list. Email lists can take years to cultivate, and subsequently monetize. Do this with Facebook, and stay abreast of current updates to the network that allow you to reach people more frequently and easily. Email is slowly but surely dying out, so the next generation of leaders will need to be able to capitalize on Facebook and other social media.