All businesses these days should have an active social media presence on a variety of Web sites for maximum exposure and lead generation potential. Social media can help you grow your business and get your message out to potential customers as well as existing customers, and the best part is it’s free. If you have not yet created your social media presence or are just getting started, it’s important to realize that there’s a right way and a wrong way to engage in social media as a business. Doing things the wrong way could end up in customer loss whereas the possibilities are limitless if you’re using social media in all the right ways.

The first thing you want to keep in mind is that you should not use your social media accounts to blast people with advertisements about your products and services. Yes, you are online to grow your business and pick up new customers, but if all you do is rave about your own products or services, people will quickly tune you out. Remember that people have to opt in on all free social media sites. This means that they have to “Like” your business’s page on Facebook, “Follow” you on Twitter and so on. They can just as easily unlike you or choose to stop following you if you overwhelm them with advertisements about your company.

You do want to keep your customers aware of new things happening at your company as well as any promotions you’re running, and social media is a great way to get the word out. In between posts about your company, post links and news that are relevant to your industry or business sector to keep your followers informed and happy. You could also share photos from around your office, sneak peeks of new products and other fun stuff that will let people know more about your company and give them a sense of familiarity with you.

While your social media presence should have a personality behind it, remember that anyone can access the information you post and make sure your posts are not vulgar or inappropriate. The Internet is filled with people complaining about one thing or another, but you do not want to be posting negative remarks or other potentially harmful information from your company accounts as people will associate these remarks with your business and you could end up losing customers as a result.

Although there is no magic number when it comes to how many times a day to post, keep in mind that if your customers are inundated with posts, whether useful or not, they will most likely opt out of receiving updates from your company. Make sure you post your information at appropriate times throughout the day as well for maximum exposure. As all social media sites list posts in date order, posts from the middle of the night will most likely be lost in the shuffle by morning when potential customers are logging in to see what’s going on.

Good luck expanding your online presence!