There is a mounting body of evidence that social media has a positive impact on the sales process. In a recent post on the Social Media Examiner, Nichole Kelly shared eight methods of evaluating the impact of your social media activities.

One of the most interesting, was the idea of a control group. She suggested comparing two groups of prospects; one that has, and one that hasn’t interacted with you through social media. In her example, prospects exposed to social media before (and after) filling out lead forms, were significantly more likely (175% to almost 740% ) to become customers of Care One.

She also looks at retention rate, cross sell and customer saves. In each case, social media played an important role in solidifying the relationship with the client. How do you stay in touch with clients and prospects today? Do you follow them on Facebook or extend offers to Linkin?   While I am comfortable adding any prospect to my LinkedIn circle or following them on Twitter, it seems presumptuous to “friend” them on Facebook, but I would be comfortable inviting them to become fans of ours.

What do you think?  Where does social media fit?