How are you using and profiting from social media sites? Here’s the probable answer: You’re using them, but not profiting from them.

That’s because your Facebook page has photographs of Sunday’s picnic, 15 comments from close friends and relatives, and nothing about business. That’s because you have a Twitter account that tells your audience of 75 you’re in your pajamas and going to bed. And that’s because your LinkedIn account (if you even have one) has fewer than 100 connections, and none of them has ever received a value message from you. Ouch.

Let me further challenge you that you do not have your own YouTube channel. (Billions of people access it every day, and it’s free!)

REALITY CHECK: It’s time for you to draw the line and the distinction between personal social media and business social media.

There is an easy and no-cost way to create business social media, and I’m challenging you to take advantage of it. Starting today.

1. Create a business Facebook page that your customers, prospects and fans can “Like.” A page for your business allows you to create an opportunity for dialogue with your customers and prospects. It also challenges you to create value messages, post videos, and offer tips and ideas that will help your customers and prospects build their business. You gain a following.

Take a look at www.facebook.com/JeffreyGitomer and note how I post on an almost daily basis, and how I create links back to my website so that the people who “Like” me can continue to perceive me as a value provider and a resource. Take a few moments to read the comments I get in response to my value offerings. It’s creating a revenue stream. You can do the same.

Facebook is now the third-largest country in the world. I would gamble that every one of your customers and prospects is already actively involved, but most likely only on a personal or social level. You can easily find them and ask them to “Like” you. You can set up a group and send your value message with a link to your business Facebook page or website.

CAUTION: Your business Facebook page requires work, constant updating and response. You zero out your credibility if you only post once a month. My rule of thumb is a minimum of three times a week. It’s most interesting to me that even when I don’t post, one of my fans (one of the people who “Like” me) will post something for me or about me: a quotation, a thank-you, an idea or a story. To me it’s not just a post. It’s a report card.

2. Twitter is mandatory. Most people fritter away their Twitter opportunity. They’re either saying nothing or soliciting sales. In my first year on Twitter, I tweeted about 180 times, and from that I gained more than 15,000 followers.

Yes, I have an advantage being a published author and speaker, but I took advantage of my advantage. I’m one year and four months into Twitter, and I just posted my 218th tweet: “Resilience is not what happens to you. It’s how you react to, respond to, and recover from what happens to you.” It had more than 100 re-tweets and allowed me to pass the 20,000 mark of followers.

The value of Twitter has not yet been realized. But with 125 million users, there have to be a few dollars floating around in there.

Note that when I post a quotation, it’s my own. I’m not telling you what Benjamin Franklin or Albert Einstein said.

One of my early Twitter quotations was, “If you want to be relevant on Twitter, tweet something relevant.” It got hundreds of re-tweets.

The next important, the most important, of the social media platforms is LinkedIn, and for that information you’ll have to wait until next week.

Jeffrey Gitomer can be reached by phone at (704) 333-1112 or by e-mail at salesman@gitomer.com. © 2010 Jeffrey H. Gitomer