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Many of you are familiar with how social media marketing works.  You set up accounts on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, maybe set up a blog, and begin to interact with individuals to create trust and relationships through posts and conversations.

One statement I hear all the time, is “Social media is only good when you have individual clients but not for business to business”.

Those who make that statement could not be more wrong or less informed of the power of Social Media.

Yes social media is you reaching out to individuals, but those individuals work for, manage, and sometimes own companies that you may be interested in doing business with.  They use the same social networking tools as everyone else.  This is where you can begin to manage your business relationship.

Always remember, you never know who is following your Social Media Marketing Campaign, maybe it’s Jim down the street, or it could be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

What about your existing clients that you spent so much time and money to get?  How can you use social media to enhance that relationship?

Simple!  Have your clients employees, or at the very least your client contact, sign up on your social networking sites and inform them of your blog (and yes if  you are going to be taken seriously in the Web 2.0 age you are going to have to have a blog).

Now that your existing clients are following your posts you can sprinkle in information about how you are taking advantage of new technologies to help existing clients.

Maybe you provide staffing for companies in Atlanta, and you have existing clients.  Do they know you had 35 engineers come off of a project in the exact area of technology they use?

How do you post such a thing?  How do you do it without coming off as an awful salesperson?

Again Simple!  Go to your Facebook or Twitter account and post something like:  “Good luck to the 35 Microsoft Engineers who just finished a project for us and did a great job.  If anyone knows where they might find new projects please let us know”.

That is not over the top or pushy.  There is a good chance if you have been maintaining your virtual relationship with your client, they might just respond and say, “Hey we are looking for someone!”

Let us not forget the importance of following our clients and their Social Media Campaigns.  Maybe this existing client is launching a new IT support department and has been talking about it on their social networking sites.

Now think how quickly you could possibly move those 35 Microsoft engineers into new positions.

Companies using social media will always let you know the direction they are heading, if you pay attention to their posts consistently, you can become an insider and have insider information without having to make those awkward sales calls where you come off as uninformed.

That is Social Media as a Virtual Account Manager!

I look forward to your questions and comments.