Relationship building and networking are primary reasons why small business owners and entrepreneurs participate in social media. In fact, I recommend networking as an important source for motivation.
Over the past few months, I have been very active on Twitter and if you have been following my Entrepreneur Interviews segment, you will learn that I got to know most of my interviewees via Twitter (@WayneLiew).
I’m sure that if you are active on Twitter, you would have exchanged a few replies or direct messages with other Twitter users or Tweeples (technical term 
). This is how you build the relationship. But how can you bring these relationships to the next level?
Organize Social Media Meetups
Social media meetups can be arranged based on geographical locations, niches that your connections are into or even held in line with a local event. Just like a normal networking event, you should get to know each other more, have a relaxing chat and if possible, help each other out with business.
Organize Social Media Events as Partners
Social media events here refer to something like a blog carnival or a Twitter chat sessions (examples are #smbiz, #journchat, #sbbuzz). Organizing an event together allows you to uncover someone’s personality and working together will definitely enhance the possibility of both of you working with each other again.
Do Business with Each Other
When you have close social media connections, you tend to do business with them as compared to people that you never had any conversations with. Apart from business as in transactions that involve money, a business can also be something like a guest blog or speaking events arrangement, an interview request, etc.
Feature Connections to Your Community
A lot of people, or perhaps it’s just me :p , love to get themselves featured. Whether it is on a full page article of a nationwide magazine or just a #followfriday feature, it helps to improve the relationship and you might even get a reciprocal feature.
If you know someone that your community would definitely love to follow, featuring that person on your blog or in your tweets is also a move that adds value to your community.
Offer Your Help
Often times, people will have questions on certain issues that they will post it in their status updates. If you are able to provide an answer, go ahead. Other forms of help include donations, promotion (retweeting for Twitter), participate in an event, comment on a blog post and many more.
Recommend Connections as Resources
You cannot be an expert in everything. Our connections or followers on social media sites will have unambiguous needs and require different help or information from time to time. Since you can’t answer all of them, why not refer them to someone that you know could provide them with the answers?
Instead of providing crappy help and risk losing your reputation, why not become a good resource by recommending your connections to another? In the end, it is really a win-win-win situation.
Personalized Messages
Sending out personalized messages via Twitter DM, Facebook message or email is always a good way to improve the relationships that you have made on social media platforms.
One tip to appear personal due to all those “made-to-be-personal” messages is to have someone’s first name in your message. This works great for Twitter as I don’t think any Twitter DM spam tools out there that can pull someone’s first name into the DMs they send out.
Also, be sure that you have had prior conversations before sending out a message like this because it can be very offensive for some people if you try to be sassy.
Phone and Instant Messaging
Bringing your conversations with a particular person onto private means will allow you to know more about him/her. Instant messaging platforms like Windows Live, AIM and Google Talk are tools that you can use to bring your social media friends closer to you.
What’s Your Tips on Social Media Relationship Building?
The above are just some ways that I can think of to bring social media relationship to the next level. I am sure that you can be innovative and figure out more that can suit your business.
If you have been very active on social media, what are some of the tips on relationship building that you would like to share?
Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Hearing from you is priceless.
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Photo Credits: madmarv00
Wayne Liew is an online marketing consultant, online marketer and editor of Wayne Liew Dot Com. 
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