You have added your profile pages to a number of popular social media sites, posted from time to time, and responded to the messages. Perhaps this is sufficient to make your small business flourish.

Certainly not, as per a recent study of a New York University, which discovered that while more than 50% of consumers interact with businesses through social media, merely 8% are pleased with their dealings.

Take a look at the top tips to create and keep an online social strategy that builds your brand and makes money for your business.

First of all, ask yourself some basic questions. Whose attention do I want to get with the help of social media? What can they do for me? Why am I spending time and money on these platforms – can they speak with sectors of my market?

In order to be successful, make engagement an important part of your sales and marketing approach as a whole. Social media is the way and not the strategy.

When opting for social sites to expand your brand, sales and marketing efforts, be simple and selective.

Make sure to match your market demographics to social platforms. When planning to build a profile on another social site, you should have the necessary resources, like people and time, so you can post regularly and respond fast to all customer and potential activities. Use analytics to measure how effective your choices are.

At an early stage, go for a social media management platform to organize each and every social account you have, as well as RSS feeds, from one screen, plan when to write your posts and distribute tasks to your staff, among others.

Even though you do not employ a devoted social media officer, carefully select the person who will do this. Make sure to choose people who are energetic, social savvy and know your business, understand its vision and can write in your company’s clear and friendly voice and not lose their temper. This is not easy to find.

Make use of monitoring tools to track the presence of your company throughout the Internet.

This will let you ensure to always respond to customer activity, your social media communiqués stay on message, and that fake or negative posts about your business get a measured, timely and positive reply.

Keep in mind, though, that like any marketing, selling and branding effort, your social activity must have the ultimate aim of drawing and keeping customers, as well as increasing sales. Some companies just present lots of ideas in their social media wall and wait for the results.

Incorporate your social marketing into your customer relationship management as well as sales systems. Let your social media be accessible. Keep track of the leads created this way, and most importantly, do not treat customer communications lightly just because they get to you casually through media.

Measure the results of your campaign. Try out your marketing approach, social offers and the social platforms you have chosen. Measure the results once more.

Since your small business will invest a considerable amount of time in social media, you should see a return of your investment, not just an increase of followers of fans with no significance at all.