Social networking is huge now with the advent of LinkedIn, FaceBook, and other sites. According to Riverside Marketing Strategies, here are five ways to incorporate social marketing into your selling mix:

Create message boards, forums, and wikis to reach out to customers. Based on your marketing goals, implementation may vary. Your site should offer a mixture of advice, blogs, forums, and other resources for its small business customers. You can actively solicit customer input regarding fixes to your product as well as to its marketing.
Develop a corporate blog, and post on relevant third-party blogs. To have a real effect, these blogs should engage readers in a frank dialogue about important aspects of your product line and its use. It must be genuine, not rehashed company-monitored PR-speak.
Solicit consumer input on your site to track and engage in a one-on-one conversation. To stay relevant and show you're behind this effort, a knowledgeable staffer must promptly respond to inquiries. Don't use an auto-responder that sends a thank-you email. Get back with the customer using a personal message or a phone call.
Engage in public forums relevant to your brand. Like other types of social marketing and blogging, you must be transparent and relevant.
Advertise on relevant forums to get users to engage with you. Sponsoring carefully targeted content on third-party sites may work better than straight ads. Relevance to the consumer's needs at the time of action is critical, as users are there to interact with each other.

Your customer will remember you if you are professional, personable, knowledgeable, and ethical. But they will love you if you service them well. Take action when your customer needs help; return his messages or calls; stay in front of him as a gentle reminder of how much you care about him. Your customer is your bank. Great customer service—engaging the client—are like deposits in your account.

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