Hi Brad - it's all about the goals. The strategy that works best for me is one of connecting with people in social media and then getting them out as quickly as possible. Mind you I'm building one-on-one relationships as I'm not going for huge numbers. My customer value is large so a single customer can either directly bring in a lot of business or refer a lot of business to me.
I also do a lot of testing to see which content gets the clicks. Oddly enough (or perhaps not) posts about how best to use Twitter, when spread via Twitter, do very well. Go figure. But it's an indicator to be sure.
As you say it takes time. For me it's well worth it and has gotten me a lot of business for my services.
