Facebook's popularity has seen it emerge as the leading platform for useful and effective social advertising, and the many millions of marketers entering the Facebook fray show just how popular it has become as a vehicle of messages, both corporate and otherwise.

Whether you're new to the social marketing scene or simply want to increase your efforts to turn some of Facebook's nearly half of a billion users into leads and conversions, check out these five proven Facebook marketing strategies that work:

1. Keep It Human

One of the most oft-committed mistakes by Facebook marketers, leaving a page to the hands of outbound links and machine-generated content, is a sure way to turn people off at a glance, causing serious damage to your long-term marketing efforts. Be very careful to give your efforts - whether they take the form of a simple social stream, a fan page or a group - a distinctly human touch; after all, if you don't care enough to populate your streams with quality content and interaction, why should your fans?

Now, this isn't to say that links and other impersonal additions are a no-no - they simply need to be offset by a live, recognizable human touch in order to give your potential fans and customers the peace of mind of having a person in the know within reach.

2. Utilize Facebook Apps to Increase Your Reach

Facebook may be most popular with the general masses, but it does an excellent job of catering to its business partners as well. Between home-base offerings like pages, groups and badges and the seemingly endless third-party apps that take advantage of Facebook's API to offer even further functionality, there is a world of opportunity to be found in add-ons.

3. Keep It Fresh

While a few days off may fly by quickly for you, they can seem an eternity on Facebook when your fans are looking for new content to indulge themselves in. With the understanding that social media represents an always-on, never-off platform for your marketing efforts, make a point to keep your pages and streams updated with new, quality content every single day.

When your fans and competitors don't sleep (all at the same time, at least), you can't either! If time off is approaching, consider creating new content ahead of time that can be added to your social steams while on the go, potentially from a mobile device.

4. No Matter Your Goal, Communicate!

The real goal of social media marketing is not simply fishing around in the deep pool of potential leads but connecting with them on a human level in order to encourage a final action, such as a sale. To this end, be sure to engage your followers each and every time they approach you, turning simple questions or comments into public discourses on the merits of your products or services, potentially turning that lead into a conversion and leaving an informative legacy conversation for future visitors to stumble upon.

5. Make Calls to Action a Very High Priority

At the end of your lead hunting and the discourse that follows, what you're really looking to do is have your Facebook fans complete a desirable action. Whether you're looking for website visitors, sales or recommendations, the best way to achieve any action is to call for it loudly and clearly. So-called "calls to action" can be represented by any number of efforts but, typically, take the form of an outbound link that takes your fan from Facebook to a third-party website where that action can be completed.

Utilize styling, well-worded short reviews and feature outlines, graphics and any other catchy visual aid to encourage your Facebook following to take the next step with you at their earliest convenience. While you don't want your social stream flooding them (see No. 1), calls to action should always be found somewhere above the fold and should never be outdated.

Featured images:

•  License: Creative Commons image source
•  License: Creative Commons image source
•  License: Creative Commons image source
•  License: Creative Commons image source
•  License: Creative Commons image source

Jessy is the social media strategist at Dobovo, the Ukrainian travel startup.