Facebook has almost twice the number of users than the population of both Canada and the United States combined. Twitter has close to 200 million users. Reaching out to this online universe can be more useful for business than leveraging any other medium that you can think of. These two major social networks have cut across geographical boundaries and evolved to a stage where even traditional advertising barriers such as age and language can't hold back their stupendous growth and popularity.

More and more businesses are now looking at ways to effectively utilize social media and reach out to their clients and prospects. Yet, only a few have been able to successfully enjoy the benefits this medium promises. Most businesses seem to think that having a social media presence suffices. Some even make the effort of posting and updating on a regular basis. Yet, they fail to see the traction they were expecting and soon give up. Why?

The most common mistake that business are making with social media...
The key to social media success lies in understanding that it is all about building relationships with your online network. Ironically, most businesses often seem to forget this social aspect of social media activity. You need to engage with your target audience on these platforms to meet your goals. And that engagement can only come from providing value not from making noise.

What should your social media objectives focus on?

• Brand Building: You no longer need to depend on expensive television commercials or advertising in the leadings print publications. Social media can help you build your brand online.
• Win new customers: The immediate benefit of being a recognized brand is business growth. You can leverage social media to drive traffic to your website and even foot traffic to your store.
• Customer service: You can leverage social media to interact with your customers and answer queries or address any complaints they may have.
• Feedback: You can be in regular touch with your customers to understand their requirements, concern and feedback, and utilize the information to improve your product or service offering.

Now let's look at how you can develop a strong social presence on Facebook and Twitter to get the most out of your social media marketing across these dominant social properties.

Facebook sees more than three million likes, comments, and shares every single day. If you can build a strong network on this platform then even half a percent of these likes and shares are enough to set your business soaring.

Begin by building online relationships with your existing customers. Provide them incentives to help you reach out to their networks. Word-of-mouth marketing continues to remain one of the most powerful mediums ever, and Facebook enables this. A strong presence on Facebook matched by good products and services can lead to your business becoming part of the conversations in your network. This, in turn, will lead to recommendations to the larger network, thereby, enabling you to reach new prospects and extend your circle of influence.

Track metrics and drive profitable social campaigns
Facebook Insights, Facebook's proprietary business page analytics tool, enables you to track the activity on your page. This insight helps you to understand what is working for your business, and accordingly tweak your campaigns to gain maximum mileage. However, you would need to gain some expertise in garnering actionable insight from the vast amounts of data that the tool lays at your disposal. Key metrics that you can track using this tool includes page activity, demographics of your visitors, new subscriptions and people who have unsubscribed, and posts that are getting maximum visitors. You can leverage this information to fine-tune your campaign for greater effectiveness.