This is ninth and final post series on ways your business can use social media.

Social media works hand in hand with all your other marketing efforts. If you use print advertising or business cards, you need a website to send people to.

And if you have a strong website, you need to use it to show people that you’re available on social media. Social media reinforces your website’s presence and shows that you are active and worthy of doing business with.

If you have a poor website and can’t be bothered with connecting with people on social media, they won’t bother with you if they have a choice.

Thanks for reading up on these nine posts in the social media series. Now go big on Social Media.

Here’s the first if you’d like to reread them from the beginning.

This is one of a multi post series on ways your business can use social media. What should your strategy be?

All this effort – It’s all part of a larger strategy. Your being on social media is just the tip of the iceberg, really. You need to have social media objectives, consider your business needs, timing, plan out content, monitor and analyze your audience, measure your success and understand how it all works together.

It’s not just that you are a likable person, but that you have the insight born of understanding along with training and support in order to make the most of your social media. As a reward for your time, social media can help you handle customer service, lead generation, partnering, recruiting, marketing and anything else to do with people. Social media builds relationships and relationships lead to business in the short and long term.

Tomorrow is the ninth and final part in this social media series. We’ll cover the final two things you need to take advantage of your social media efforts.

This is one of a multi post series on ways your business can use social media. How do you find followers?

It’s trivial to find people and connect with them. It doesn’t even take all that much time – perhaps a few minutes in the morning and a few minutes at night.

The point of all this is not to chain you to a computer. You just need to realize that social media and your website is how people will find you, put trust in you and ultimately decide to deal with you. Remember you are talking with your community, not a silent audience. Build your community a few people a day.

Next, let’s look at what your larger strategy should be.

This is one of a multi post series on ways your business can use social media.

If you have a story worth sharing, you might try locating journalists interested in what you do and giving them your story. Generally a news story must be something that is quantifiable. Who cares if your client has produced 1,250,000,000 toilet rolls in 2010? Nobody! However, “the most toilet roll produced by any toilet roll company in a single year” and a comparison “when lined up side by side, would stretch around the earth’s circumference more than three times,” then the mundane becomes of interest. “Quantifiable” news is generally the first, most, largest, highest, smallest, loudest, quietest, farthest, lowest, etc.

It’s also good to offer content that people want. That makes it easier to spread and you get that one in a million shot at going viral. Of course, the more shots you take, the more likely it becomes as you learn more and the better your efforts and results become. At the very least, if people validates your website by linking to it from their social media then search engines place more trust in your website.

This is one of a multi post series on ways your business can use social media. Today is all about what you can post to your updates.

Make your posts personal. Use some emotion and let your personality show. It will get your visitor’s attention.

You can always poll your followers and friends to see what they think. This may give you ideas for adding to what your business offers or refining your services. Ask them, survey them or otherwise let them know you are always interested in their opinions.

It’s also handy to keep an eye on your competitors. See what works for them and how you can do it better, do it in your style or “>what they shouldn’t have done.

Maybe you have some avid fans. The best way to keep them avid is to keep them in the know. Use social media to inform them of special events, your highs and lows, new products and everything else. They want to know. Do you suppose Harry Potter or Star Wars movie fanatics weren’t chomping at the bit for any shred of information about the next movie coming out? Of course they were. You might not have the kind of fans that dress like you and beg for your autograph but chances are you can make dedicated fans by doing what you do best and letting people know about it.