If you’re preparing to take the dive into the world of Twitter but have no idea how or what really makes for a successful Twitter campaign you’re not alone. Most people are lost when they start out – and that is okay, but being informed is better. When most people think about what makes for a successful Twitter account they generally think of it in terms of one thing – how many followers do I have? Having a load of followers is nice and it surely can win some bragging points, but is that really all it takes to be a Twitter king? Doesn’t the quality of your audience count too?

Think of Twitter in terms of a car dealership. Your account is equivalent to car showroom. You try to tweet as many interesting and relevant things as possible to not just get the attention of people passing by, you want to convert those visitors into clients. It’s not that much different than the guy with the wacky inflatable arm waving prop on the corner of his lot trying to draw you in.

Just as having 1,000 people visit your showroom without making a sale is a bust. Having 1,000 Twitter followers that do not re-tweet your posts or ever put a penny in your pocket are pretty useless. The whole point of Twitter is getting people engaged so you can get them to a conversion point. Would you enter any venture that saps your resources to get zero return? So what do you need to do to make Twittter work for you?

Start with a professional profile. Use your corporate logo as the photo and then come up with the most engaging description you possibly can in 160 characters or less. Make sure you include a link to your website in the field provided for it. Allow people to direct message you. It helps encourage engagement. If necessary, hire someone to do it for you. This is going to your company’s outward presentation to the world so it is worth spending a few dollars to make it the best it can be and running professionally. Keep in mind that Google will index this, so it is definitely not something you want to play around with and skimp on. SEO does count! Even with the birth of G+, twitter does have a Google presence.

Next, get to know your competition. Too many people never even consider looking for who on Twitter is competing for the same keywords as they are. To do this, type http://search.twitter.com  Type in your keywords and see who is hitting them and how effectively they are doing it. Figure out what you ned to do in order to do it better than them. Next, begin tweeting articles from around the web related to your target audience using titles you have optimized. Be sure to credit the original source! This is a great way to get industry specific followers. Once you get them reciprocating, the odds are you will get some of their followers as well. This makes it easier to get your business tweets shared around later – reciprocation is big.

It is important to tweet on a regular basis so people keep your name and product fresh in their mind. If you aren’t there, it’s almost like you don’t exist. If you are asked questions, make sure you answer all that are relevant. Don’t waste time if it is a, excuse the phrase, “stupid question.“ Your odds of converting increase greatly if you actually are social when using social media. While Twitter has not banned the use of hash tags in tweets, it is best to keep them to a minimum. People that use hash tags in their tweets all the time are often looked upon as spammers – and it simply does not pay to get that tag. Playing nice and keeping it clean goes a long way.

When you begin following people, make sure those that you follow are people that can do something to raise your corporate profile on Twitter. Avoid bots and people that you wouldn’t want associated to your business in the real world.  Keep in mind that the people you follow on your personal account may be of no value to your business account – keep them separate! Like anything else, keep your eye focused on quality and your campaign will be all it should be. You’ll be a twitter king, or at least a prince, in no time at all!

Your Facebook page is all set up and ready for action. You built a following, and now you’re wondering what is it all for? Are you really getting traffic to the point of sale site the way you need to? Are you actually making salesand seeing any money come in from all of this? Do all those “likes” really mean anything of significance or are they hollow?  Does it all translate into being something that is actually worth your resources, or just an elaborate game?

Being real for a second, Facebook fans are pretty easy to compile. The key is not about grabbing the most fans, but rather the right fans. The quality of your audience does make a big difference. In the beginning, any fan will do because your main focus is to look like you have a ton of activity. How you are perceived matters. Once a base of followers is built up though, what are they really worth to you? Thanks to Jessica Lee and a friend who shared survey data from over 4,000 respondents, there are some metrics that demonstrate the actual value of Facebook fans which reinforces two principles – not all fans are created equally, and a good fan is money in the bank.

Before diving into the numbers, the data collected was from B2C companies alone and not B2B’s. How it may correlate to B2B type companies is something that is going to require more research. That is something we are really looking forward to seeing.

* Fans are 41% more likely to recommend a product they like to their friends than non-fans.
* Fans have a brand loyalty exceeding that of non-fans by 28%
* The average fan that “likes” items spends $71.84 more than non-fans on average.

The value of a fan goes beyond those numbers however, and likes on Facebook are not all equal as we stated earlier. If you already have a well recognized strong brand name outside of Facebook, likes tend to mean a little less. You generally already had a fan base before ever launching a Facebook campaign, and the likes you have tend to be in large part from people that are already using your product. One also has to consider the value of fan interaction when a company has an established fan base prior to Facebook. In this type of case, engagement is more toward customer support. It may not be directly making sales, but keeping existing customers happy and informed does indirectly help sales.

A Fan that “likes” an item once per year and visits the page maybe once every five weeks is not a terribly valuable commodity. What you are looking for are fans that may visit about every two weeks and “like” around ten items each year. Then the analysis can go even further into how many friends your fans have. The more friends they have, the more people there are that potentially see their “likes” making them more valuable. The reach of a particular person liking an item is important – the greater their reach, the more valuable their likes are.

The best strategy going forward with any serious Facebook campaign is to seek outside help to provide some insight into who your fans are and what they are really doing for you? You need answers two important questions like whether or not your fans can actually afford what you are selling? If they cannot, how valuable are they to you? How do you get the sporadically active fan more active? Is your fan base too big to manage on your own and is that a possible reason why you are not converting as much as your raw numbers would indicate you should be? These are all issues your professional SMM can analyze and act on to get you the best results.

In the final analysis, your fans are only as good as you compel them to be. Getting a ton of “likes” is good and valuable in a certain sense, but there is a lot of gray area between getting someone to hit the like button and visiting your site – and then opening up their wallet. Don’t discount Facebook like so many people do thinking it’s a fad or that some other network will knock them off. If you’re missing out on Facebook, you’re missing out on selling to the world.

The use of large scale Social Media Markets is a power that cannot be denied when done correctly. Some businesses have gone from small local brands to international hits via SMM. But you have to ask yourself if that is really the best way to spend your time, energy and money? Sure the appeal of a community with tens if not hundreds of millions of people is an awesome draw, but is it the right draw for you? Is establishing in those markets enough on it’s own to carry you to ultimate success? Will it keep you ahead of your competition? Why deal with a community of several thousand when platforms with millions are available?

The easy answer is no. The large SMMs like Facebook and Twitter are the jumping off point. You need a presence in those markets, but what you really need is a strong link building strategy – particularly niche link building. Niche link building is the prime rib on the pate that is social networking. This is what helps you gain some page rank and more importantly authority in your field,

Niche social sites immediately put you in contact with people that already have a strong interest in what you have to offer. You are not spending your energy trying to get them to like adult sized  pajamas for instance. They already want them, they just want more options when it comes to buying them. That is as close to a “gimmie” sale as there is. By not even having to clear the hurdle that is generating interest in a product you have cut your workload immeasurably. That benefits your fiscal bottom line.

Once you begin interacting with and converting a few sales from that niche crowd, you have tapped into a market that is more likely than not going to recommend you and your products to their friends of a similar interest. People love to share a deal, cool item or great sale. They will take care of doing some of your work for you if you provide them with a great consumer experience. If you gain the loyalty of one niche buyer, you get them and two friends they bring along in many cases. Without asking, they will distribute your link for you to platforms where it is not only relevant, but usually with a glowing testimonial. That is hard to beat. Free promotion is good – but not guaranteed.

You can crack niche markets one of three ways that returns excellent results:

You can create your own network of forums and blogs. This is only ever a viable suggestion if the niche you are trying to crack has nothing out there and that is beyond unlikely. Nearly everything has some presence on the web and this can be quite time consuming.

The second option is to Google your keyword accompanied by “chat”, “Forums, “discussions” “community” and similar phrases. At that point you need to begin involving yourself in those communities enough to be noted as an active and responsible member – not just a link spammer. That takes time, energy and a load of patience. This is a great way to get established, but because of the massive amount of time it can take it is often a job outsourced to a professional SMM.

The third option is to hire someone to do all the social media management for you instead of just portions of it. Yes it costs money, but when weighed against the cost in terms of time, energy and hiring a company that may already have established inroads in your niche community, farming the project out is often the best way to get fast results. These are people that interact for a living – they can almost always do it better, faster and cheaper than you when compared against the opportunity costIt is not so much about how you go about your niche specific marketing plan as it is that you just do it! Sitting on the sidelines does not translate to conversions.