How many times were you so excited about some great information that you couldn’t wait to share it with your friends?  You probably quickly sent them a text or an email, called them or even stopped by their house with the news.  That is exactly what social media communication is all about!  Be a friend and share your information in a straightforward, honest way and you will build trust.  In other words, you have to earn your way into a “trusted relationship” by being a good friend.

An important step in effective social media communication is the idea of giving information vs taking. Or, providing value to other people, rather than hoping to get value yourself.  Mom was right after all, it is better to give than to receive, at least it is in social networking. Selling comes later.

You should constantly be looking for ways that you can add value to the conversations that your network is already having.  This means, of course, you must be listening to what they’re saying.  But once you know what it is that they’re saying, what it is that’s important to them, your objective should be to help them.  Give information to them.  Support them.

It is surprisingly easy to reap huge rewards in social media by simply providing credible information to your community.  What do I mean by credible?  The information you offer must include answers to their common problems without sounding like you are selling something.  That will come later if you cultivate faithful followers who like and trust you.

The unspoken rule is to build rapport with your followers.  We do this by sharing genuinely helpful information, on a regular basis that doesn’t benefit you in any way.  In other words, it is not an article about how great you are, or how desperately they need your products and services.  Rather it is a glimpse into your personal life that also includes knowledge that your followers are searching for.

Think about what kind of information you could provide on a regular basis to your audience.  For example, if you have a pet supply business, your information could involve helping pet parents provide the best quality of life for their four-legged-family members through advice on nutrition, behavior modification, avoiding accidents and life-stage-care!

For a food products business, you could enable a recipe – sharing community or even a recipe contest for the group and they could all vote for the winning recipe.  You could also bring them into contact with some professional chefs.  It is not as hard as you might think to contact a famous chef.  Just send them an email and ask for some helpful tips for the home chef.  The ideas are endless.

Contrary to popular belief, your business is not different from the examples listed above.  All businesses need social marketing.  Just brainstorm with your community and they will let you know what they need from you.  If you don’t know the answers, ask someone who does and quote them in your responses.  They will love you for it.

People who freely share what they know are very likable.  If the information that you share is also high quality, you quickly become trustworthy.  Of course, they now know you and they know that you are a nice person AND one who knows what they’re talking about.

By gaining trust and respect, will they be more likely to read your tweets and updates in the future?  Including the ones where you mention something that you have to offer?  Consider the following:

• A FREE report from Chef Andre on the “5 Biggest Mistakes Chefs Make When Baking a Cake”
• Or a FREE video on “Baking Nutritional Treats for Your Pet” by pet bakery owner Jake Barkley!

Give people the information they desire, build trust, earn their respect and they will beat a path to your Tweets!