How do you solve a problem like social networking?

Despite the constant bombardment of emails and tweets from people claiming to 'have the answer!' to social networking for business, the overall perception is no one has quite mastered best practises just yet. It's on everybody's list of things to do and it fills Powerpoint presentations Worldwide with buzz phrases like 'tapping into the social craze' and 'increasing our social networking presence 50%.'

In the sales intelligence field, companies want media monitoring to include the social aspect. Some may not necessarily know quite why, but the assumption is it's going to be useful. And, make no mistake about it, it is but you have you to go into it with your eyes open and not be expecting a miracle formula. If you arrive at a party expecting a free bar only to receive a free drink coupon, the free drink seems disappointing. But it's still a free drink!

Because people are unsure of it, they are hoping it provides all the answers. It doesn't. Twitter feeds can be erratic, unpredictable, and sometimes absolute rubbish. Contrary to popular belief top executives do not spend their time tweeting about classified account details (unless they are somehow connected to the Labour Party).

But by tracking the right blogs and feeds you can gain valuable, personal insight from potential customers, who would probably not share such details in a face to face business meeting. You can monitor product sentiment, you can be alerted to press releases quickly, and with tools like Artesian's, you can analyse volumes of social networking traffic, meaning you can be alerted very quickly if something is stirring within a company or a news item is starting to surface.

Best practises may still be a way off, after all, it's only been a year since the B2B/B2C markets really began to realise that social networking was here to stay, but providing you know what you're getting, the value and benefit of these sites can be exploited very easily with the tools available.