For those businesses diving into social media, you have probably realized how easy it is to set-up a Facebook or Twitter account. In my earlier post I cautioned against, Taking the plunge into social media without a plan. Today, I caution against falling into the trap of blatant self-promotion. Contrary to what appears to be a growing craze, a business Facebook page and Twitter are not the places to “pimp” your products or services.

Alex Marcoux on Social Media

Often, I see people getting frustrated when they don’t see immediate results from their business social media efforts. They wonder why no one follows them back or why they haven’t seen an improvement in their sales. Face it – who wants to follow someone who repeatedly pitches their products or services?

Social media venues are to build community with your followers and develop relationships with existing and potential customers. Social networking is to integrate technology and social activity, by sharing words, videos, and articles. Keep blatant product-messaging to other marketing arenas, like PPC (paid-per-click) campaigns or your website, but use social media to build community and become a trusted advocate within your network.

As hard as it may seem – nobody cares about your products – except you. In social media, it’s not about you – it’s about how you can be a value to your connections. This isn’t to suggest that you shouldn’t occasionally post a promotional message, but don’t keep regurgitating the message.

Here are some simple tips to build community on Twitter and Facebook:

• You’re an interesting person – share interesting things happening at your business or line of work.

• Retweet or post articles or video links that you find interesting or helpful.

• Tweet or post tips that your followers may benefit from.

• Share interesting quotes that may involve your area of business.

• If you blog about your area of interest, tweet or post a link to it.

• Respond to your followers’ direct messages and send direct messages to your friends or followers.

Social media is about relationship building. It’s not about quantity – it’s about quality. I’d rather have 100 good followers interacting with me than 10,000 people in which I haven’t a clue who they are. Use other marketing tactics to sell your products and leave Twitter and Facebook for building community.

Social networking is one of newest and best tools to promote your company. But, if it’s abused, you’ll quickly learn it’s a sure way to lose friends and irritate people.

Learn more about Alex Marcoux on Our Team page.  Follow M-Squared Public Relations & Marketing on Twitter.

Let’s face it, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites have become the norm. In fact today, it’s rare to find anybody who hasn’t entered the game. According to the video, Social Media Revolution 2, based on the book “Socialnomics” by Eric Qualman, 96% of Generation Y has joined a social network and nearly 13% of married couples in the U.S. met through social media.

Alex Marcoux on Social Media

Another growing trend is the use of social media for business. When you look at the statistics, it’s ill-advised to think that social media is a fad. It took four years for 50 million people to use the internet, three years for 50 million to try I-Pods. In less than one year, Facebook added over 200 million people. Today, there are over 400 million active Facebook users and Twitter has hit more than 50 million tweets in a day. Additionally, people spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook. When you look about these figures it is no wonder that business owners are recognizing the value of social media for their business.

We help small businesses with their marketing, public relations and social media, and while it’s clear that social media has become a standard public relations tool for businesses, I still see clients resisting to enter the game. Conversely, I also see companies jumping in head first because they fear being left behind. For those businesses taking the plunge into social networking, I routinely caution my clients to avoid a common mistake – proceeding without a plan.

Social networking is a commitment. While it may take little time to develop a site – it takes hours to execute your programs. Without a map to know where you’re going, and how you’re going to measure your results, you’re setting yourself up to invest a lot of time, money and to potentially become frustrated.

Have a plan. Set realistic goals and benchmarks and understand how you’re going to measure the social media site’s success. Know what you want to accomplish before you invest the time. Understand what you’re using as a control or baseline to compare “before and after.” The number of friends or followers will probably not be a good gauge for your ROI (Return on Investment) or success. Perhaps your success could be measured simply by the traffic going to your website, in which case use the tools available to you. You can find excellent material on Mashable, including HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI.

For those business owners still reluctant to enter the craze, I’ve posted the video Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh) below. Don’t get left behind, but before you move forward, be prepared and have a plan.

Whether you need training to develop or execute a social media plan, or you desire to get your website ranked using social media, blogging with SEO (search engine optimization), M Squared Public Relations & Marketing is positioned to assist your company to use this significant tool.