Social media is the latest trend on the World Wide Web! And not without reason. It is an extremely powerful and effective avenue to market your business on the internet and establish your brand reputation among your audiences.nIn fact, social media can well be the answer to all your business related concerns. Apart from being a powerful marketing agent and brand builder, it also helps you increase your sales tremendously. That is the reason why more and more businesses, be it small start-ups or big enterprises, are adopting social media as a prime source of marketing. However, in order to extract the full benefits of the social media phenomenon, you need to know the right tricks and techniques. Its no use just creating profiles on networking websites and be part of the crowd. Rather, you should use social media to shine above the others and be a star!nHere are some tips to market your business effectively on social media websites and derive good benefits:nDefine a Social Media PurposenQuit the mob mentality! You don’t need to be a part of the social media race just because everyone else is doing it. You should know why you are doing it. Without a clarity of purpose, all your social media efforts would be of no use. Think about what do you want to gain out of social media?nIncrease revenue for your business?nBuild a brand or strengthen it?nCommunicate with your audiences?nBefore you create a Fan Page on Facebook or start Tweeting or broadcast via YouTube, make sure your define clear goals and objectives. This will help you create a course for your social media activities and you can easily measure the results.nUnderstand the Differences of Different PlatformsnThough all the channels of social media rely on the principle of sharing and communication, you should understand that different social media platforms need to be used differently. For example, you can’t do the same things on Facebook that you can do on Twitter. Therefore, spend some quality time researching about the various platforms and gather a good understanding of how things work there. Remember, different platforms work differently and therefore you should devise a customized approach for each one of them.nUnderstand your Audience BasenIn addition to knowing the basic nuances of social media platforms, the next important thing is knowing the user base there. Spend time on different platforms and understand the user base there. See how people talk and communicate and what kind of information do they respond to well. This will give you a fair idea about what marketing approach would work best. Make sure you avoid using industry jargon lest people don’t understand you at all.nBe Real… Don’t FakenOne thing that doesn’t work in social media is pretension. If you are fake on social media, it wont be long before people start avoiding you. So, whatever you do… be real. Be honest about your identity as a representative of your business and its products and services. Don’t try blatant marketing. Rather, focus on providing more information about your products and services that will convince people to make a purchase.nKabir Bedi is working as a senior web consultant with LeXolution IT Services, a web Development company that offers a range of web feature services in addition to regular web designing and development services and search engine optimization services.