Everyone’s talking about it, everyone says you need it, so you get it. You’re all set up with Facebook and Twitter, great! … Now what?

You start posting. But forget your well versed product pitch, the purpose of getting into social media is to interact with your consumers. This is not to be confused with selling to your consumers. Sales may be your ultimate goal, but for now, that’s not what consumers want to hear. So what should you write about?

Before you ever touch your anxious fingers to the keyboard you need to keep 2 things in mind.

1. Social sites are casual. Twitter only gives you 140 characters to relate information at any given time. This means there’s no room for long winded terminology or impressive vocabulary normally found on your website. Keep it simple and to the point, i.e. “Good Idea: link to site”, done.

2. You must be interesting. You’ll never get followers if you’re posting old news or lame company facts. To achieve interesting your posts generally need to be one of three things, new, helpful, or humorous. And that’s just the eye catching part. But you don’t really want just anyone following you. It may make you feel special, but remember the ultimate goal is to turn followers into customers. So keep your information industry related. This will help narrow your following into a well targeted audience.

With these two golden rules in mind you’re ready to start posting. Here are some ideas on what you can do with your social media accounts:

1. Update your status regularly. What’s going on? Literally. Talk about the pros and cons of a new item/program you tested out, or that last office debate on whether “X” was more effective than “Y”, then ask for your fan’s opinions.

2. Share the last interesting article you read and give your thoughts. Impress your fans by showing them your industry knowledge base is wider that your own doors.

3. Start a discussion or a poll. People love to share their opinion! Giving the others a chance to express their views not only shows respect but builds trust as well.

4. Post pictures of the office or people at work, your last office party, and networking happy hours. Seeing your faces and the office life makes a company that much more personable with the average consumer.

5. Retweet and Facebook share. If someone else you’re following or reading up on has uncovered some thing interesting, share it with others by posting an eye catching tag line followed by the info link. *hint: this is a great way to keep up in the social world when you’re limited on time.

6. Link to your blog. You’ve got something new, helpful, or humorous to say and it’s more than 140 characters. Post it to your blog then, as with other articles, put a title and site link in your post. While it’s more time consuming to write your own article, links to your blog will bring more traffic to your website and improve your overall search engine marketing strategy.