Let’s imagine you are a one, two, three-man operation and your contemplating using social networking sites (SNS) to support your marketing efforts and ultimately generate sales in a short time.

It’s hard to ignore the power of communities as consumers spend 30% or more of their time online. Get ready to think it through as your begin strategizing, “how to incorporate social media into your marketing plan at day one.”

Get Your Cash Machine Ready. If you haven’t spent the time to build and host an E-Commerce website it’s now time to do so. There are many options to choose from beginning with hosted-subscriber based to custom add-to-cart scripts that you will need to evaluate with a techie to see what is a right-fit for your needs.

Your Value Proposition It would seem that this is an overlooked point in starting a business where value is not for the business owner not the intended consumer. Spend the time to find your sweet spot whether is to bring together the best in local brands to a global assortment that screams value for the money in an easy, convenient and secure E-Commerce site. It’s important to “Brand!” your products with your logo and website address to ensure continuity with your website to your consumer.

Here is a five(5) Best Practice Points in setting up your social media profiles in community networking sites.

1. Profile Picture Jazz up your Facebook profile picture with a collage of some of your available brands. It gives your fans a quick snapshot of the products you offer. On Twitter make a similar but different variation of the same logo.

2. Posting Schedule If you haven’t hooked up your website analytics like the free Google Analytics it’s now time to do so. In retaily, it’s important to post on those days which have the most activity which are most commonly Wednesdays at lunch hours. Of course check against your website analytics and post according to what you discover as your peak times. As far as frequency of posts, I would try for a minimum of two posts per day and increase frequency as needed.

3. Promotional Announcements Take advantage of both SNS platforms to announce and publicize upcoming and ongoing promos.

4. Product Roll-Outs Everyday use Facebook to feature a particular item on your E-Commerce website. For new arrivals and discontinued products use both Facebook and Twitter to grab attention of fans and followers to generate interest to your product line-ups.

5. Taking Orders When taking orders its best to use your E-Commerce website to process orders. It’s not ideal to take orders through Facebook or Twitter even though you can, you will be hard press later to manage your sales prospects from fans to followers where creating seperation gives an added feeling of trust and confidence for the online shopper.