This weekend, Peter Yarad shared a few insights on what works and what doesn’t work on Facebook.

His most helpful point, I think, is that when you’re designing content for your brand’s Facebook page, it’s beneficial to think about what drives engagement on a regular, personal Facebook page:

“A brand on Facebook should be like a casual friend or neighbor and not try to suck people into heavy levels of interaction. What do you do with a friend? Comment on their photos, like their status, vote on their outfit. These types of interactions take seconds, not minutes, and definitely not hours.”

Additional advice includes making sure your content is “lightweight”. If you’re using like blocks or other obstacles, they must lead to very lucrative deals. It is also important to realize that building a solid audience group on Facebook (and anywhere, really) takes consistent engagement and that it will need time to grow.

Finally, the especially good news: Facebook is built for lightweight engagement type activities, and therefore you can use standard and free, though still custom branded, apps for your brand’s campaign.

Yarad also lists what doesn’t work, including:

• Treating a Facebook tab like a web page
• Offering sweepstakes
• Launching photo and video contests
• Using Like blocks
• Asking for extended permissions

Read more on ReadWriteWeb.