One of my pet peeves is seeing posts on Facebook and Twitter begging people to “Like” or follow them because they want to hit a magic number … 50, 500, 5,000.

Is it my job to recommend my friends, colleagues and clients to follow someone on Facebook or Twitter just to collect friends or fans? No.

While having a goal of online friends and followers is a great indicator of the effectiveness of online marketing, when I look at some of the big numbers following small businesses, I’m not always impressed. Sure kind of neat to have a feng shui consultant from Australia or a tanning salon owner from New Jersey following your tweets and Facebook posts, but are they really interested in who you and their other followers are or are going to retweet and share your information? Are those out-of-town friends and followers going to come in for lunch at your restaurant, buy something if you own a boutique, or call you if something breaks down if you own a heating and cooling company or an auto shop? Probably not. Ever.

There are several ways to make new friends and influence more people to cultivate more meaningful (and profitable) relationships via social media.

If you use Twitter, check out local people (not the goat farmer in Germany) following neighboring businesses and businesses similar to yours and follow them. There’s a one in three chance they’ll follow you back. On Facebook, take out a Facebook ad that lets you target the types of people by location, gender, age and interests. Better yet, ask neighboring businesses put a good word into their friends and customers and do the same for them. Post a sign at your point of sale counter or prominent place in your store or office to let customers know they can keep in touch with you on Facebook and/or Twitter. Make sure you have Facebook and Twitter follow buttons on your websites. Offer a special or incentive for a friend or follower who recommends someone new to follow you online.

When we launched BerkleyLive in September, we asked the businesses we profiled to offer a giveaway to build our Facebook following and to give them some exposure to customers they haven’t met yet. We made it fun and it continued to be part of the conversation after we announced a winner.

As always, keep your posts fun, informative and relevant. People follow businesses on Facebook and Twitter because they want to know what’s new, what’s on sale, and be entertained.

And if you’re posting about your friends and followers and not at them, that’s even better!

And remember, your 199th friend or follower is just as valued as your 200th — or 2,000th — follower.

Bonnie Caprara is the social media and media relations director of Community Marketing Associates and editor of BerkleyLive. She can be reached at bcaprara@commmktgassoc.com and at CommMktgAssoc on Twitter. Updates on BerkleyLive can be found on Facebook and Twitter.