The ‘build it and they will come mentality’ does not work in social media. To reach your customers you have to go where they are, be it Facebook, Twitter, or the comments section of a Mashable article. Three simple steps will give you a blueprint for targeting your ideal customer and garnering their attention. Make profiles of your target customer. Define their demographic qualities, their personality and behavioural traits, and where they are likely to spend their time. If you’re trying to reach amateur photographers, develop an ongoing dialogue with them on Flickr, like ProBlogger founder Darren Rowse has been doing as of late. Engaging with customers on their turf will propel them to engage with you comfortably, in a way that is familiar to them. It will also knock down barriers to conversion which are inherent in having customers take more than a single step to get to you. Enter your target market’s networks and join on-going conversations with customers. Once you find the networks your customers inhabit, spend some time listening to the tones and subjects of the discussions, and try to decipher who the community’s thought leaders are. After you have become familiar with the community, and have created a knowledge base for yourself on the topics at hand, look for openings in conversation to lend opinion and advice. Start off by providing a solution to a problem being discussed by a potential customer, whether your offering is a solution to it or not.  Continue in the same vein, being a provider of solutions and advice, and then begin to create discussions surrounding your company’s industry and how your products and services can provide solutions to problems inherent in that industry. Never come out with a straight sales pitch. Social media is about conversations and engagement, not about pitching someone directly. Have a back-bone of content already in place before you start trying to reach an audience. Once you pique a customer’s interest on their social network, they will spend time to locate your online presence to see what else you have to offer. People are not going to respect you if you only have a post or two written in a blog. You need dozens of posts on a focused subject to gain the respect of that subject’s audience. Garnering their respect will inevitably propel them to make you their seller of choice. Check out Wishpond’s new Merchant Center to get a free Facebook Storefront.