How should your business participate in social media? Social media is conversation online. It is happening all over the internet and is discussions about content that is posted online or something that is happening offline as well. Content that is produced by businesses to engage conversation can take the form of video, audio, or written including inside blogs, forums, all types of social sites and membership sites.

It is important to be 'in the conversation'. Businesses are increasing brand awareness, building significant followings, and producing more sales by integrating their company with social media marketing.

The ultimate goal of using social media for business is to get traffic to the website so that you can share more about your company's product or service. There are many social media tools available to do this. The engagement you create with people in the social sites is what will help spread your message. When people you are connected to approve what you are saying, they will spread the word just like offline word-of -mouth advertising.

HOW do you join the conversation?

Social media facilitates the communication between people online. You will join the most popular social media sites like Twitter and Facebook and create a space there where you have the opportunity to build a large following. Posting valuable content in these spaces is what will attract others to you, in addition to brand awareness if you are an established business.

Posting content regularly is necessary because people are not going to come back to the same stale content on a page. Each time you post something, you will want to kick in your social media marketing plan for the content. The more you attract people to the content, the more targeted people you will build for ongoing communication opportunities.

Triggering conversation about your business is accomplished by searching for what is being said and responding to it. Answer questions, ask questions, give helpful information, provide valuable content. These are all ways to join the conversation.

What you want to target is an opportunity to provide a link back to your website each time you post something in a social site. That way, people can find out more about your business when they read something interesting that you wrote. This is another ongoing task: to search places online to engage with people and establish relationships.

People are always looking for new content, information about a product or service including features and reviews, help with something, answers to their questions, and discussion about experiences with products and services. They want direct access to the business, possibly even the CEO. The more you engage in the talk that is already happening online (about the market or industry itself and specific companies), the more you will integrate your business into social media and work toward conversion of engagement into sales.

When you give people the chance to associate themselves with you online, you are laying the groundwork for leveraging this communication for your benefit - at the same time, you are providing benefits to your following. Social Media is about sharing and relationship more than it is about selling. It is the model for the old saying that the more you give to others, the more that comes back to you.

The biggest takeaway today is threefold:

1. You must be active every day. Once you begin to participate in social media there will be conversation daily. You need to be responding to this communication and adding to it.

2. It is important to establish relationships, share valuable information, and not look for an immediate sale. People want to know that you care and are genuine about the business you represent.

3. Patience is required. Social media marketing is a process and most of the time it takes time and effort building a presence online before sales are realized.