Are you a business owner or entrepreneur who hasn’t started using social media yet? Networking on various social sites will allow you to improve your Web site traffic and build your online presence. Whether you are a small business owner or communications director for a large corporation, adding social networking to your marketing strategy is imperative.

Interacting online in social network sites allows you to do three things. You get to build stronger relationships with your business partners and colleagues, you have access to online experts and you get more one-on-one time with your customers, to learn their likes and dislikes and to engage them in your business.

Building stronger relationships with colleagues and business partners gives you the opportunity to add people from their network and to pick their brains for expert information or opinions on vendors. Getting to interact directly with your customers or potential clients allows you to gain a stronger understanding of their needs and how they would like to see your business or service offerings develop.

There are an ever-increasing number of social sites available to you and it would be impossible (and unnecessary) for you to be active on all of them. To start off with it is only necessary to be active on three: LinkedIn (professional), Facebook (social) and Twitter (immediate). If you still feel overwhelmed, just get involved on LinkedIn and Twitter for now. You can add Facebook later.

When you sign up for these, sites use your real name (or as close as possible). You want people to be able to find you. You may also want to sign up under the company name which you can do on LinkedIn and Twitter. Get a great head shot and use a small version of this as your thumbnail sized avatar. The sites will offer to look for contacts from your email address book. This is a great feature and you should do it. Deselect if you don’t actually want to follow someone.

Writing a strong biography for your site is very important. This gives people just enough information to decide if they want to connect with or follow you. When you develop a biography, let people know what you do and also add your URL to your Website or blog so people can get additional details about your business. On Twitter you can design a background. Use a free design site to do this yourself or hire a graphic designer for this small job. It makes a difference in the professionalism of your site.

Now you have to start interacting! Twitter offers a “search” box now and you can type in keywords like “entrepreneur” to find discussions, and thus people, to follow and contribute to. There is also a great site called WeFollow.com that allows you to do a search by terms that people have identified themselves with (“artist”, “small business”, etc.). On LinkedIn and Facebook, you can join groups and on Facebook there are fan pages for lots of famous people, from musicians to business people. Offer your opinions and resources. Get involved!

Although the bottom line for many using social media is to increase sales, don’t push your product or your services too hard. People don’t like this. It is a real turn-off and they might not just stop following you, they might encourage others to do the same. Offer real opinions and real interactions to slowly build a following and loyalty.

Sometimes you will get the opportunity to meet some of your contacts in persons. Facebook and LinkedIn list events in your area and Twitter has what are called “tweetups” which are live gatherings of Twitter members, generally around a topic or interest. Interacting in person builds a stronger connection than just online.

Social networking is more time-consuming in the beginning as you get set up but you should not be intimidated by it. A few minutes each day once you get started should be plenty to build your online presence and expand your reach to new customers and new experts. Go get started!

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