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Scary title today right? There is so much purity that comes from running a business and getting involved in today’s social media landscape. You hear all the experts saying to listen, provide customer service, engage with your audience and build real relationships. These are all great strategies, but at the end of the day you probably run a business.

One that likes to make money. One that probably has some bills, some overhead, maybe payroll or some shareholders that like to know that the new college kid you hired to be a Facebook wizard isn’t just playing with wizards in World of Warcraft.

So how can you sell and create revenue through these platforms, while still being engaging, authentic and not come off as just another company that is only after the crispy Benjamin’s?

Rick Mathieson, author of The On-Demand Brand: 10 Rules for Digital Marketing Success in an Anytime, Everywhere World had this to say about selling through Facebook and Twitter:

The price of developing apps for Facebook is coming down, and with ingenuity, can even be revenue builders. Pizza Hut recently launched a Facebook app that enables customers to place orders without leaving their profile pages. There’s no reason a small company, say a local sandwich shop couldn’t do the same. Los Angeles startup ice cream truck company Coolhaus takes a different approach. In addition to differentiating itself with ice cream sandwiches designed using architectural principles — with names like “The Mies Vanilla Rohe” and “The Frank Lloyd Light” — “we roam the entire radius of LA and update our location on Twitter,” co-founder Natasha Case tells Young Hollywood. The idea: To entice people out of offices and onto the street for an “ice cream social” that racks up serious sales.

The two examples that Rick gives are just a few of the many companies that understand what their customers and fans who use these platforms want out of a connection with their brand. Some things to consider:

Don’t make them leave the platform.

If they are already using Facebook and have found your fan page, do your best to keep them there. It was hard enough to get them to publicly “Like” your page and now you want to take them out of that environment. That doesn’t make much sense to the customer, even though it makes sense for the guy on your team looking at web stats.

See what pizza hut did was created an environment that lives within Facebook, where they can engage, interact, create brand advocates and if these brand advocates are hungry, they can order right there. This concept may seem trivial, but it is very important to the customer. You can event take it a step further and publish that activity to their News Feed (with their permission of course) so their friends could see they just ordered a pizza and maybe they will do the same.

Go Mobile.

This week I saw a friend of mine launch a new company, WeReward. Essentially it is an iPhone app that rewards you in “cash” to check in at restaurants, bars, retail shops and more and earn even more “cash” for doing tasks like taking and sharing pictures in these locations.

The reason these services are launching is that there is an extremely valuable ROI and sales tactic that can be applied here. If people are sharing photos at your place of business, they are spending money there. If they share a picture of a smoothie they just bought, you can put a $5 ROI on that picture.

Selling via mobile is advantageous in that you are targeting your demographic based on location and preference and thus they are already pre-qualified to like the offer you are sending.

If you don’t ask, you don’t get paid.

At the end of the day, if you tip-toe around asking for the sale, you will never get paid. This is something I’ve learned in my own business and through reading every sales and business book on the planet. No one is just going to buy. There are too many window shoppers in the world looking at thousands of websites, millions of brands and billions of products. Make an offer, ask for the sale and be genuine when you do so.

There is no reason that you cannot use this is the social media world as well.

So, let’s end this week with – how are you selling using social platforms?

Greg Rollett is a Rock Star Internet Marketer from Orlando, FL. He blogs about Lifestyle Design and Online Marketing.

Tags: monetization, Social Media