Increase social media engagement with clients by following these simple communication strategies.

Engage Buyers On Their Preferred Platforms: Typically, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are the platforms your buyers – and their companies – will use most often. So when you want to engage a client on social media, first determine what platform they are most active on and then seek to interact with them there, says Natalie Henley. “If you have a client who is on Twitter and Facebook, and you see they update Facebook daily, but haven't updated Twitter in months, then obviously try to communicate with them on Facebook,” says Henley, president of Volume Nine, an agency specializing in SEO, social media and content marketing.

Actually Be Social: Engagement centers on interaction and dialog. In the social sphere, that comes from being proactive with clients and prospects – from retweeting their tweets, liking their Facebook posts, and commenting on and sharing their blogs, videos and curated content. This helps promote your clients, indicates you care about them, and keeps you top-of-mind. It also, potentially, helps expand your online visibility, as many might return the favor.

Create & Share Original Content: A consistently updated blog and/or YouTube channel can serve as a strong foundation of your social media outreach. In these forums, you can create content that both establishes you as a promotional products expert and that provides valuable information to your clients. The content should be based on your audience’s needs – should feature insights that help them more easily achieve their goals. A great example of such a blog post is “Great Holiday Gifts For Under $5” from SoBe Promos (asi/245603). As you create excellent content, disseminate it through your social media platforms. You can post links to the same content more than once; just contextualize the link differently within each separate post. “Sharing content can drive traffic to your website,” says Henley. “It can be extremely effective long term to build your lead pipeline.”

Curate Relevant Content: There’s only so much original content you have time to generate. But that’s okay. Find articles, videos, blogs, infographics, photos and other material that would be useful, interesting and/or entertaining to your buyer audience. Then, share those.

Show A Little Personality In Your Posts, Tweets & Comments: “Obviously you want to keep it professional and non-offensive,” says Henley, “but I wouldn't be afraid to be a little interesting, quirky and funny. Basically, try to be fun and authentic.”

Don’t Be Overly “Salesy”: Bombarding clients with pitches. Putting out nothing but a stream of updates on specials. Approaching a new prospect on a social platform with a pitch right out of the gates. Such actions are mistakes that can sink your creditability and cause people to brand you an annoying troll. Result? They tune you out – online and off. That said, if you are communicating the right way the majority of the time – sharing good content, liking/commenting on clients’ posts – then it’s fine to mix in more direct-sell initiatives, such as posts about great deals on products clients might appreciate.

Try Paid Promotions: Paying to promote posts and executing ad campaigns can help ensure you don’t get lost in the social shuffle. “If you are really under the gun to drive leads, I'd strongly recommend considering a Facebook advertising campaign,” says Henley. “The interface is very easy to use, the targeting is fantastic and the cost per click is relatively inexpensive compared to Adwords. Facebook has also launched a lead generation functionality that allows you to capture leads straight from your ad campaign.”