1. Keep Your Page Updated with Fresh and Engaging Content

It’s all in the name. Social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter are only really successful if the owner of the page is social! Keeping the feed going with current news, upcoming promotions, having users upload their own photos or asking them to answer polls and quizzes are great ways to keep them active on your page and your product or service fresh in their mind.

2. Give Incentives or A Reason for Users to Like or Follow You

Aside from your awesome product or service, why should users like or follow you? If having followers on your social sites is important to you, then giving out site specific information, specials or contests is a fantastic way to boost your following. For example, Banana Republic recently did a promotion where, if you liked their Facebook page, you were granted early access to view their Mad Men collection. Using incentives like this is a great way to shift focus from your social media page and to increase web traffic to your site, which is where you ultimately should want the user to end up.

3. Stay Current with Updates and Use Them to Your Advantage

While not always for the better, Facebook is always evolving. Within the last year, Facebook updated their fan pages from FBML, which was their form of HTML, to support iFrames instead. This update allows users to create pages as they would sites, enabling more advanced programs and elements on their pages. If the thought of putting together a webpage quality Facebook page makes your hands kind of sweaty, there are plenty of Facebook and third party generated applications you can utilize that allow you to add testimonials, integrate with e-commerce sites and much more without designing anything or writing a line of script.

Hopefully these few tips will be beneficial on your road of social media-ing!

Perhaps you should be.

In recent weeks, I’ve noticed a lot of local (and national) businesses jumping on the somewhat controversial Foursquare bandwagon. Not a Foursquare user myself, I’ve found myself wondering if I’ve been missing out.

For those of you who are thoroughly confused, Foursquare is a location-based social networking website that allows users to announce their location via other networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Users sign into the service and tweet or message their friends about where they are to unlock different badges and earn points.

Why do I think your business could benefit from such a thing?

This gives businesses, like yours, great insight directly into your customer base by fostering an online community. Better yet, it’s also a great way to offer specials and incentives to your frequent guests. By becoming a part of this little social network game, you’ll drive customer traffic and keep people coming back.

I recently checked out some Foursquare specials in our area and found some sweet deals. For example, the Starbucks down the street offers $1 off the new Frappuccino for anyone who becomes “mayor” of that store. I don’t know about you, but that would definitely get me to Starbucks a lot more often instead of getting my usual blended beverage at another place. What’s even better for Starbucks is the fact that it’s going to take me quite a while build up mayor status. Do you know how many visits (a.k.a. dinero) that means for Starbucks?

As a business owner or manager, you gain a lot of other useful information from this service too. I just think it’s a great way to market your business as well as showcase your awesome social networking prowess.