Making money on social media starts with relationships

Social media sites are wonderful places to gather up free market research information and to get in touch with your customers. Using social media sites you have the opportunity to finally build relationships with your customers. You can talk to them on a normal "human" level so they don't feel like you are always out to sell products to them all the time. Social media sites are free to use and it provides you with a lot of opportunities to learn how to market to your customers correctly.

As you learn more about social media sites, you will quickly find out that if you want to make money on these sites you have to learn how to build relationships with them. You need to be able to strengthen your relationships so you can start to find out what your customers really want so you can build better products for them.

Since these sites are free to use, people get annoyed quickly with companies that are always sending out advertisements. People need valuable information not just links to buy new products. They want to build a relationship with your company as they will be able to see inside of your company to learn more about it.

What type of things can you do to build relationships with your customers? Don't always focus on talking to them and learn how to listen. You need to sit back and evaluate the information they are posting and learn from it. Try and respond to some of the information once and awhile as it will help you to build relationships. Listen to the discussion boards and post some information with links back to your website.

Become the company in the know when it comes to certain topics. As you review what people are talking about, you want to respond in a timely manner if it is warranted. You need to make sure you are linking customers back to your website where they will be able to learn more about the company and to see that you are the company to go to when they want more information about this particular market segment.

Focus on providing education to your customers. When customers can see that you are using social media sites for more than posting ads and coupons, they will respect your company more. You want to look for engaging content to post like informative articles and blogs. This helps you to gather up a stronger following of dedicated readers. Ask for suggestions so you can come up with new topics to write on that will help you educate your customers.

Stay active on social media sites. If you aren't getting on the sites weekly to acquire information from your customers and to post information, how will your customers know you use the site? You don't need to post daily but you do need to get on often enough that you can respond to the customers messages and posts.

As you go through the ups and downs of social media sites you will be able to learn that making money on social media comes from relationship building. Finding a high quality customer and feeling them happy can lead to a number of happy customers as they will refer you to new customers as well. This is like getting free marketing contacts just by treating your existing customers good. All in all you need to steer clear of being annoying on social media sites. Stop posting if you don't have something of value to provide to your customers. As you narrow it down and post the information they need, you will build stronger relationships.