If you have a Facebook or Twitter account set up and think it is open season to pitch your products like crazy you will never have any followers!

You have to establish some sort of relationship before anyone will buy from you and social media is no different. Its like walking up to someone at a coffee shop and asking for their hand in marriage… you may want to go out on a few dates first, meet the parents, you know, take it step by step. If you clobber prospective clients over the head and try to drag them back to your cave its just going to backfire. So the opposite of this is to just build relationships with anyone and build a following. This is generally not a successful strategy either. These people will not have a cohesive interest for you to help them with.

The key is to build a following of targeted current customers and prospective customers by offering value. Yes, you heard that right I said current customers. As you may recall in your Marketing 101 class there is a Marketing Pyramid with current customers on top. Remember they are the easiest to sell new products and more products and services. I think this is one area that social media management can help you leverage your current success. I can’t tell you how many times a good customer told me they did not know we offered X product… So this is where the constant communication of a Facebook page can really help remind your current customers of your capabilities as well as keep your name in front of them. So are you selling in every communication? Are your followers tuning you out because there is nothing in it for them? This may be worse than not having a presence at all! Here are a few questions to consider. If you don’t have any social media set up yet still consider the questions.

What is the ratio of sales messages to messages with real value?

Is it 50 pieces of valuable content to each sales pitch…100?