How good is your social media presence? And what are your goals for social media? An obvious goal is to increase business. Duh. However, you should have a number of “upstream” goals that, over time, should lead to increased business. One such goal should be to increase social recommendations. According to Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising Report, consumers trust the recommendations of others compared to communications that come straight from the company itself. This doesn’t mean promoting your business online isn’t important….it is. But it should only be one part of what you do in this domain.

We get bombarded by all kinds of messages requesting us to “like” a company on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, review them on Yelp, etc. Though it may seem on its face a little silly, it is actually very valuable to build this base. Other consumers see this attention as a positive and it improves their perceptions of the company.

So, if you are not encouraging your customers and potential customers to do or say something positive for you, you are behind the curve. But all is not lost…it’s not too late to initiate a program to do just that.