OK this is probably nothing new.

I have no idea what the average salesperson is up to these days. Cold-calling? Doubtful. Networking meetings? Perhaps.

If your salesperson aren’t spending a least half their time social networking (Linkedin, twitter, plaxo, facebook), they should be slapped upside the head. Granted, most Social Networking is most effective if you can sell your product or service on a nationwide or worldwide basis. But no matter, there are infinite opportunities awaiting your salesforce in the social sphere. All it takes is a little initiative.

Here are the three big reasons Social Networking should be on your agenda:

1. Sales is a numbers game — the more contacts, the larger your sphere, the greater number of relationships a salesperson creates, the odds of success improve dramatically. Creating relationships through Social Networks is the easiest, fastest, cheapest way to get this accomplished. Period.
2. Social Networking is king during an economic downturn — When times are tough and budgets are tight, businesses tend to look online more for solutions. And most of the outlets for information are social networks (LinkedIn, facebook, twitter, etc). This is an opportunity for salespeople to easily make meaningful connections. Forget the buzz phrases of web 2.0, social media is simply people talking, sharing and collaborating on popular online channels. And if you’ve looked at the numbers lately, it’s a significant critical mass of people.
3. What part of FREE, FREE, FREE don’t you understand? — I hear it all too often, ‘we don’t have the time or budget’ for social media. Well, Social offer so many Free resources I can’t possibly name them all here. Free research (guestions on LinkedIn), Free advertising (commenting on blogs, posting videos on YouTube), Free access to every contact you will ever need (“get introduced” feature on LinkedIn), Free presentation tools (Slideshare), Free document posting (Scribd), Free worldwide long distance (Skype), Free enhanced search engine visibility (blogging, profiling, or commenting with your links to your site). And much, much more.

If you’re a sales manager, general manager, or small business owner and are wondering why your sales people aren’t producing, and what these people are doing with their time, perhaps you should ask them about their social networking activities.

Just a suggestion.

After participating in discussions on LinkedIn and other social media sites, I often see lots of skepticism about the viability of social media in B2B marketing. Many B2B marketers seem to feel that social networking is more effective for major consumer brands, and will not produce results for B2B. The perception is usually, ‘I don’t use Facebook,’ or ‘I don’t get Twitter’ or simply ‘I don’t get it.’

B2B Social Marketing is one of the hottest things going right now especially in a down economy. There are strategies for practically any B2B market, particularly in technology. Technology forums, for example, were the original online social communities. Whatever your B2B brand or product happens to be, there are lots of unique ways to generate interest through social media.
A couple key strategies to consider:

1. Create your own social community-– I’m not sure how many B2B tech companies are doing it, but some are creating their own social sites (using ning.com or other platforms) that offer forums, news, blogs and more all in one place. And the key is, getting your company’s internal people to invite customers and prospects to participate, and encouraging them to join in the conversation. You can also use twitter to help point key customers and prospects to join in.
2. Entice participation by discussing relevant, compelling topics— How do you know what these topics are? Well, you can actually use your online community to discover what these areas of interest truly are. You can use surveys, for instance, to discover key concerns, or to generally find out what would make your community valuable.
3. Allow the online community to control the conversation— don’t dictate it based on your marketing objectives. Continue to add new features and vehicles to your online community based on what direction your conversation is going.

Until recently, defining the roles of marketing and sales was simple: marketing paves the way, while sales closes the deal. The job of Marketing is to spread the word to prospects, while salespeople are tasked with following up, building key relationships, and closing deals.

Today, the line between marketing and sales is now beginning to blur as more and more salespeople are becoming astute social networkers. With social media spaces becoming more popular, salespeople and entrepreneurs all over the world are using LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites to discover new markets, meet prospects directly and forge profitable new business relationships. No lead generation, branding or cold-calling required. In a sense, many salespeople are becoming their own marketers.

The sales role in social media networking — initiate and develop key relationships.

1. Develop relationships with people who matter. There are plenty of people participating in the social media sphere who can waste a ton of your time. Once you meet someone (prospect or suspect), make sure to get up-to-date, reliable contact information to use in your ongoing email marketing.
2. Comment on key industry blogs, post links, and keep close watch on others who comment.
3. Continue to build your sphere of influence. As a good social networker, be sure to invite connections to join you on other social sites, and request that your connections introduce you to others that may need your product or services.

The marketing role in social media networking — help salespeople plan, execute and measure their efforts.

1. Work with your salesforce to create a blog and share ideas about your industry. Share your recent posts within your social media spaces, and invite comments.
2. Keep salespeople focused — because some salespeople are not detail oriented, they may tend to overlook focused on the wrong social networking strategiesomment on blogs that are hot within your marketing space. Keep your identity present in your market at all times.
3. Search Twithority and other social sources to uncover key influencers and leaders on the most important social sites. For example, creating a relationship with a YouTube user who has several thousands views on his/her videos, or making friends with someone who has thousands of connections on LinkedIn is valuable social currency, so to speak.

Keep in mind, however, this strategy may not be relevant to your situation, as each social media strategy is unique.

Social Media, with its infinite number of media channels reaching millions, is quickly becoming the new way for PR professionals to influence public opinion, polish brands and sell product. If offers infinite opportunities to communicate with slivers of vastly powerful little universes.

I recently ran a short discussion on LInkedIn, and posed the following question on a forum:

PR practitioners: is social media enhancing or destroying your business?

I received the following answers that seemed very positive:

(Enhancing) “Quite simply yes. I run a public relations and social media consultancy and we run integrated campaigns that treat both mainstream media and blogs as important stakeholders/audiences. The importance varies depending on the sector, campaign as well as individual blogs/media/journalists/writers. Just last week we held a preview event to showcase a new TV show specifically to parent bloggers.” — Stuart Bruce, Managing Director, Wolfstar, public relations

“Working at an agency that has been primarily traditional PR until this year, I have seen the benefit to this agency in a number of ways. By focusing on the social media I think the niche is one of the biggest advantages we have. While magazines sometimes are specifically only for one interest, the social media allows us to break our target by age, location as well as industry. Our messages can be more targeted to the most receptive audiences and therefore have the most chance for success.” — John Whitcomb, Social Media Coordinator, Robin Leedy & Associates

“As a PR pro who recently transitioned to social media exclusively, I will say that traditional PR folks need to get on board or risk being left behind. Social media is not going anywhere and it’s an undeniably powerful medium to engage in real time with influencers and audiences in MANY spheres. Best of all, it’s measurable UNLIKE the vast majority of traditional media placements.” — Dina Fierro, Director, Fashion & Beauty at Attention PR & SMM

And then interestingly enough, there’s one PR guy who thinks SM is possibly a fad:

“Until social-media sites are capable of delivering information regarding the demographics of their readers, they’ll always be niche — plain and simple. I know, we’ll probably read a dozen or more stories in the next 12 months talking about some type of revolution, but we’ve heard all that before. In reality, revolutions are VERY few and far between. This very platform is considered Web 2.0 of sorts, but it still involves typing text into a form, something that I was doing back in 1994.

That said, social media isn’t really going to destroy anything. If you represent a consumer product, there may be some blogs that have an audience that’s influential enough to worry about. Most of these are blogs associated with mainstream media outlets, however. For most, blogs are a supplement to their additional media work and something that won’t change the world in the near term. Can those of you who spoke about social media’s unique measurement capabilities explain that? Honestly, I’d really be interested because I’ve not seen ANYTHING reliable. To say that it’s more measurable than traditional media’s a pretty big leap, given that all print pubs have to go through a pretty exhaustive process in regard to readership verification to qualify for 2nd Class postage.” — Cyrus Afzali, President, Astoria Communications

Participating in Social media sites such as Linkedin, Facebook and many others, is simply a must these days, particularly if you need to broaden your network, explore new trends, share new ideas, and most important, generate new leads. I’ve been doing it for months now, and have done all of the above.

Quite frankly, I’m hooked. And the benefits of participating on forums, and discussions have helped me create relationships with induvuduals at companies that I never would have dreamed of. Here the benefits I’ve discovered:

1. A great mentoring environment — This BTW, is a two-way street. Especially on Linkedin, you simply present a pressing business question, and you’ll get lots of interesting answers, usually sent to your email if you wish.
2. Inside Sales Info — If you need a specific contact at a company of your interest, Linkedin saves time. You can reach the right people instantly and make things happen.
3. Educate, Share, network, mentor and your next clients will come from a place you never expected. Many swear by Twitter, the 21st century gossip social site. They’ll read a few of your tweets and find you.
4. Staying in touch with important business contacts. Being connected through social media allows us to deliver information that is relevant to their business.
5. Selling or testing a product? Ask your connections to be your instant focus group, give you feedback to improve features, services, or whatever. People on social media site are very generous with their thoughts and opinions. Test ads, copy, proposal ideas, whatever. It is really helpful, and takes very little time.

But don’t take my word for it. There’s so much information on the subject, you can’t keep up with it. If you’re looking for dozens of ways to use FaceBook go to Facebook Ideas Galore. Or here’s a must read article on using LinkedIn 10 ways to Use LinkedIn