Guest Column: Nine Strategies To Tie Your Social Media Efforts To Sales And Customer Service

By Louis Columbus, Cincom Systems

Social media is enough to make any Marketing VP think they've found the Promised Land. Online global communities offer easy access, no cost to participate, and literally millions of people and companies joining every month, driving traffic estimates to the stratosphere. Social networks and their blistering growth is everything a marketer could ask for.

Yet is it? Companies need to stop and ask, "How can our existing marketing, selling and service processes be strengthened by social media? Can they be strengthened, or is this a distraction?" Where companies have challenges is when they jump into social-media strategies complete with Facebook fan pages, Twitter accounts and executives blogging with very broad, difficult-to-measure goals, if they have any at all. With so much potential to improve each marketing, selling and service process, it is better to take the time and define a set of goals first. The following strategies have proven to be successful at helping companies do just that.