In these days trying to cheat your audience with push selling techniques is completely outdated and, let me say it, a bit dumb.

Those who think that push marketing is still the best way to gain market share and increase revenues are simply old fashioned marketers. In these last years Facebook and Twitter, with their tens of millions users, have opened up a new era for brand exposure and a completely different behavior towards sales. So, back to our plan. It is not enough signing up for an account on Facebook and Twitter, creating your blog and thinking, “Well I’m done”.

Not really.

Even the best and more expensive ad campaign may result in a tremendous failure on Facebook or any other social media. As well ranking #1 on Google, or having a broader exposure on TV is not a valuable sales argument on social media.

Having Social accounts and understanding how to use them to grow your business requires some special attention and maybe some useful advice. There’s nothing than focusing on a few, but simple rules to properly benefit from your social media accounts and make them profitable. Customers hate liars and can’t stand who tries to sell them something when they aren’t ready to buy. And even less, those who annoy them by pushing continuos sales proposals on their walls (or tweets).

Here are some key facts that may help your organization better understand what does it mean entering the social era and have some profit.

Have a plan, seriously
Ok, this sounds funny: this whole post is a plan, but you need your own personal strategy. Make sure that your business is ready to set up an account on any of these social tools, being it Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. Consider at least one hour everyday to enter and participate actively and, even more, be sure that your account is properly set up. Learn the tools, the tips and be patient. You have to consider it a routine and never, NEVER, abuse or spam your network. It will lead to a disaster.

It’s a matter of relationship
Fake is fake. Whatever you say or do on social media, be sure that behind your business account there’s always a human being. Even better the CEO of your company or at least some top manager. Be genuine and be human: people will tolerate your business interest and accept you if your true interest is to build long lasting relationships. Build a community or be part of a community, it doesn’t matter. People will consider you as a person and will be more keen to remember you the next time they need to buy some products or services from your company.

Contents matter more than shouting
You have to find the right balance between being a super active user (maybe with the aid of some social tools like Socialoomph) and posting pure quality content (by posting an original post on your blog and sharing it on Twitter and Facebook). You have to be human, we said that before, so that means that you have to listen first, and then respond. Produce helpful information that may give some true benefit to your customers. Allow real participation by your customers in defining your next product or service. Social media is about quality over quantity.

So here we are: social media is constantly evolving and changing its shape. Before we had Forums and portals. Then the bloggers era and MySpace. Now there’s Facebook and Twitter. What will be next? Nobody can answer, but there are professionals that deal with the topic almost everyday. Following trends is part of their business and may be smart enough to give you the right advices.