Social media marketing can be used to build strong relationships with your customers, 
clients, or website visitors who will then become fans or customers, and later advocates of your company. This is one of the best methods for growing your business.
Here are 20 tips you can use immediately to build strong relationships using social media marketing.
1. Utilize Your Family and Friends
Ask for the support of your family and friends. Encourage them to become fans on your Facebook page or followers of you on Twitter. Also ask your friends and family to spread the word about your fan page.
2. Facebook Plugins
Incorporating a Facebook plugin into your website and/or blog is an easy and effective way to drive more fan traffic to your Facebook fan page.
3. Other Social Media Networks
Facebook is not your only tool for social media marketing. Be sure to keep your Twitter followers and LinkedIn group members in the loop.
4. Your Newsletter Subscribers
Send out an invitation in your newsletter to your subscribers. Invite them to join to your Facebook fan page, your Twitter following, even your LinkedIn group. Your newsletter subscribers are an excellent source of fan traffic that will actively help spread the message of your company.
5. Make More Use of Traditional Advertising Methods
When using traditional advertising for your business, such as television ads or radio ads, mention your social networking sites.
6. Physical Location
Interaction with your fans and customers is key. Provide details on where your shop/office can be seen or visited.
7. Your Existing Customers Can Be a Useful Tool
Use your existing customers to fuel social media marketing. Inform your existing customers about your website, blog, Facebook page, and other social networking sites being used. Getting your existing customers involved uses the most powerful tool of all, word of mouth.
8. Special Incentives Will Spark the Interest of New Fans
Using special incentives to get new fans on Facebook, followers on Twitter, or group members on LinkedIn is very effective. Offer special incentives such as access to exclusive content. Your fans, customers, followers, advocates, etc, love feeling as though they are receiving something special.
9. Stimulate Interaction
Again, it is important to remember Facebook is not the only useful site in social media marketing. Use several social networking channels to keep your fans engaged and informed and to obtain information about your business.
10. Ask Your Facebook Fans to “Like” and/or “Share” Your Material
Asking your Facebook fans to help spread your message and “share” your material with their friends and family is a great idea. Word of mouth is an effective, easy, free way to continue your social media marketing.
11. Add a Welcome Video
Include a welcome video to your landing page. Use it to tell new members about your company and what social networking sites your company can be found on.
12. Tag People and Pages on Facebook
When posting or commenting on Facebook, be sure to utilize the status-tagging tool. Using status tagging will alert the person or company when being mentioned. Simply use the @ symbol in front of the person or company’s name; yet another easy way to encourage interaction.
13. Have your Facebook Fans Tag Your Photos
Any live events you attend or hold be sure to take plenty of photos. Upload the event photos to Facebook, and ask your fans to tag any photos they are in, or recognize some one they know. Not only does this encourage more fan interaction, but also it will help your company gain more exposure.
14. Perform Facebook Activities as Your Facebook Fan Page
What better way to network on Facebook, than interacting with others on Facebook as your fan page? By putting your name out there for people to see, more attention will be drawn to your Facebook page, thus driving more fans to your page.
15. Sweepstakes and/or Contests
Sweepstakes and contests are the fastest way to increase your fan base, especially for B2C businesses. In order for this build up of fans to be successful, you will need to utilize the Facebook app tool. The guidelines will provide all the information you need to run a successful promotion.
16. Take Notice of Your Most Active Fans
Take notice of your most active fans, and take the time to say thank you. Use incentive programs such as “Fan of the Week/Month.”
17. The Facebook Questions Feature
The Facebook questions tool is an excellent, and simple way to interact with existing fans, and encourage some new fans. Poll your audience using a fun, relevant interesting, and intriguing question. This is a fantastic way to encourage interaction and the feature is built right into Facebook already!
18. Utilize Facebook Ads
The best sources of traffic you can purchase are Facebook ads. Not only does it provide you a high volume of traffic, it will also allow you to see how many users are in your target market area.
19. Network With Other Website Administrators
Networking with other website administrators will allow you to build relationships with them. This will then open the doors for you to discuss ways to work together or create synergy between your social media accounts. Thus, increasing your social media marketing traffic.
20. Continue to Learn and Grow with Facebook
Facebook is another excellent communication tool. Your company can use Facebook for public relations purposes, research and development, recruiting, sharing information, etc. Make the most of this incredible media-marketing tool.
