For any business, building a relationship with your customer is absolutely critical for success.  It takes between 7-10 times to engage a customer before he/she buys, and social media offers alternatives to direct mail, phone calls and emails.  Larry Snow of <a href="http://sjcwebdesign.com/2011/06/top-5-reasons-why-your-epsecurity-business-needs-a-social-media-strategy/">SJC Web Design</a> advises social media is “word of mouth marketing on steroids” and to “think of social media as customer cultivation. With social media you are listening to customers’ needs and making sure you create viable solutions.”

 The first thing to do is to set up profiles for your business on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  If your customers are professionals, set up profiles on Twitter and LinkedIn.  You also may consider creating your own LinkedIn group and inviting potential customers to join.   Only do so, however, if you have a generous amount of information to share; you want to make sure you post information regularly in groups you own.  If they are consumers, create a Facebook fan page and use it for sales promotions and new product offering announcements.  Keep your personal profiles separate from your company profiles. On Twitter, create a name (also called handle) that is easily identifiable with the name of your company.  For my business CSO Leadership Training, I use @CSOLeader as my Twitter name.

 Engaging in social media seems daunting at first, but once you start to see results and the outcomes of new connections, the value you get is definitely worth the time invested.  For me, I just recently started using Twitter on a daily basis for business purposes, and within 30 days, I was able to double my following.  Moreover, I made new connections at the ASIS Seminar in Orlando that otherwise, I would not have had access to.