With the amount of time people spend in coffee shops — especially people on computers — it’s not too surprising that many local establishments have Facebook Pages. Last week, we looked at how the largest coffee shop chains are using Pages, and today we’ll focus on what local shops are currently doing with their Pages and offer suggestions to better engage local customers.

While we are only able to skim the surface of all the Facebook Pages devoted to local coffee shops, a number of patterns emerge on what owners are doing. For one, even though they may only have one or a few locations, many Pages have more fans than some of the largest chains we covered in our previous post (one Philz Coffee location, for instance, has 2,350 fans while the Tully’s chain with over 100 locations only has 1,593 Fans).

Here are some key things all coffee shop Page owners should remember:

1. Make sure your contact information, especially address, is completely filled out on your Page. Make it really obvious where people can get your coffee.

2. Share menus and latest coffee creations/flavors by linking to their menu on their web site, publishing changes within the Wall (as Jitterbug Coffee Shop did) if not adding the option as a tab.

3. Include the Reviews app as a tab on your Page so users can provide their own feedback, like what LIFT Coffee Shop & Cafe has done.

4. Encourage fans to upload pictures taken in your establishment, and make sure to do the same as a Page owner. See Murray Street Coffee Shop as one example; this is one of the easiest and most obvious ways to create interaction with fans.

5. Unfortunately, many local coffee shop Pages have tabs that also have no content – Page owners need to keep tabs (sic) on this and remove application tabs that aren’t being properly managed.

6. Remember to get your vanity URL.

7. Make sure to post any events happening at your store on your page, and invite your fans. As Coffeecat shows, the Events tab can also be used to announce poetry reading, acoustic performances and other de rigueur cafe events.

8. Providing incentives for fans in-store is a great way to build Fan loyalty – just remember to stick to Facebook’s new rules about promotionsConsider splitting your Wall into Page owner posts and Just Fans in order to clearly communicate to your fans

Readers: if you are a fan of a local coffee shop(s), what would you like to see improved on their Pages? Please answer (especially if you are reading this right now from a coffee shop) in a comment below.

[Photo via Wireless Coffee.]