Expect your marketing department to soon have sales people knocking on its door inquiring how to best engage in social media. Customers are accessing information differently than before and changing their habits by conducting a lot more research online and taking advice from others who have established reputations on the internet.

Salespeople need to get on the ball immediately. It is the job of those responsible for marketing to lead the way and help out their salespeople. This may include taking a leading role participating in these social media accounts. Let's explore some key features in Linkedin and Twitter that salespeople need to utilize.

Providing Quality Answers on LinkedIn and Consider Creating a Group

 One great way to build thought leadership is by providing valuable tips and mindfully answering questions on Linkedin. The best answers for a question posed are highlighted, and when a prospective customer is impressed with the level of insight provided, it's a good possibility they'll take note of the individual for future reference when they are further along in the buying cycle. Ideally, they would reach out and request a connection as well. Creating a Linkedin group is another fantastic way to build a community. Invite the following people:

    * People in your company
    * Key customers and contacts
    * Other industry leaders.

Choose a title for your group that makes sense so people will understand the exact nature of your group. Lastly, make sure you promote your group and integrate it with the rest of your marketing events and programs.

Twitter

Now that real time content such as tweets are showing up in search results, the importance of engaging in this medium has just increased dramatically. The perceived quality of content in the tweet, and the link they point to, will assist your company in search engine optimization (SEO) when the search engines likely decide to include these in their ranking algorithms.

Twitter lists are definitely something that deserve your attention in 2010. You can find extremely resourceful lists to follow, and if you're quick to the draw in a particular niche, you can create a list of thought leaders which will establish your credibility because other people will follow the list that you created as well. This is all transparent for everyone on Web to see (unless you mark it private which doesn't make sense within the context of this discussion of Twitter lists). Now do you get a feel for where this is heading?

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