Social Media is fast becoming a powerful tool in the armoury of marketing professionals.

The belief that Social Media is no longer just the preserve of the young is that in large swathes of web design Social Media Optimisation has now surpassed Search Engine Optimisation as the main tool to increase traffic, and even Presidents and Monarchs have a presence on twitter and facebook.

Whilst most organisations are still getting to grips with how to make best use of Social Media, the truth is that it can drive not only new traffic, but also increase sales. In regard to how best to establish brand awareness the trend is now toward a mix of sites such as twitter, facebook and youtube. It is possible to use sites such as youtube to present a slightly different image to potential clients. The rise in viral cartoons as product placement has done much to establish new brands and is now being used by more and more companies.

The first thing to establish when building a social media presence is why you need one.

The options, from raising brand awareness, through increasing customer service, enhancement of client relationships, elevate product consciousness, improve customer loyalty, enhance openness and even discover what your competition is doing.

Social media is the creation of online content and the voice of the consumer are now integral parts of how a brand is perceived by customers and partners. Social media marketing opens up new opportunities to bolster traditional marketing efforts. Brand monitoring offers new options for public relations and market research that is unbiased, ideas for customer service and lead generation, and immediate feedback on advertising efforts.

Once that has been established it is then a decision as to which of the many Social Media platforms are the best to drive your company message through to your target audience.

Will you choose: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin Groups, Blogs, YouTube, Tumblr, Xing, Flicker, Digg, Second Life or any of the other sites available.

In establishing a presence on Social Media it has to be remembered that there is a difference between clients that you have, and social media followers. Followers want to discover more about you as an organisation, they want to engage with you rather than websites which deliver more of a monologue.

Increasing successful engagement with prospects and turning them into new clients is the goal for all online activities. With Social Media the chances of this can be improved by using existing clients to act as brand advocates. Referrals and references from clients work not only in most fields of marketing but are also hugely effective in Social Media.

Full embracement of Social Media has many benefits, the opportunity to increase new clients through the potential as a source for great lead generations, learning customer preferences and the added advantage that it can be very low cost.

Despite the great number of advantages there remains a question as to how many people will actually purchase a CRM add-on or AX implementation through twitter? The number is most likely to be zero. What Social Media will do is introduce potential clients to you. It also has to be remembered that a poor Social Media reputation will put potential clients off you.

Potential clients, before investing in you will do research on you, including checking to see how current clients are treated by you, and how you perform compared to the claims you made. Here is where brand advocates can enhance your reputation.

Social Media is now becoming a must have and the proliferation of blogs twitter facebook youtube and linkedin on mobile applications, has now seen the development of Social Media integration into ERP and CRM. The Social Networking Accelerator or CRM Accelerator now allows you to improve your customer interaction.  Using Dynamics CRM you are now able to connect a twitter feed about your products in realtime, this means that it is possible to find twitter followers who are talking about your products or services, and more importantly to resolve any issues current clients have and assist them to improve customer satisfaction.

If you are able to supply this technology to your clients, why would you not take more time developing your own social media channels?