In 2010, the B2B social media discussion has advanced far beyond "Should our company play?" to "How do we get started?" More savvy B2B companies are well out of the starting gate.

Research shows that social media is increasingly viewed as not just a passing fad or a "new shiny toy", but a viable and indeed valuable element of a company's marketing strategy. Social media has become mainstream over the past couple of years.

If you're still on the fence about whether the "big three" social media sites, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, have any relevance to your B2B business, consider this:

- Facebook attracts 340+ million unique monthly visitors

- Twitter attracts 44.5 + million unique monthly visitors

With such vast numbers on these social media sites, it really is a "red herring" to assume that they only attract a non-B2B audience. Your B2B customers are humans, and as humans they use Facebook just like the rest of us. Thus, the ability to customize your brand's message by developing and engaging loyal followers for your company on these sites opens up a world of marketing possibilities.

Whether your company has fully embraced social media or is still a bit hesitant about getting started, it may help to step back and do some basic research. You should listen to what is happening on social channels first before wading in. There are several online tools which can help you understand:

- what's being said about your company online

- where these message are posted

- which social sites your customers visit

- how your competitors use social media (to what degree are they using social media, what's being said about them and how they are reacting)

As you develop your company's social media strategy, here are some free online tools which can act as your company's online "listening posts", feeding you valuable sales and marketing intelligence:

1) Google Alerts emails you whenever a chosen keyword (e.g. company or product/brand name, CEO name, campaign tagline, competitors name, industry jargon etc.) is mentioned in any form of online content.

As a simple experiment, I set up a Google Alert for "Sarah Sturtevant" several months ago. Since I publish a fair bit of online content, this allows me to see where my blog and Twitter posts are being distributed across the web and if anyone comments on them.

From a corporate standpoint, Google Alerts can help your company join in on discussions which mention your competitors online, allowing you to offer your company's expertise to potential customers - not in a spammy, self-promotional way, but as a helpful subject matter expert.

2) Twitter Search scans all Twitter posts for your selected keywords or phrases. For example, I typed in a search for "Magna International"  on Twitter Search which yielded this real-time result: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=magma+international

If you want some homework that can be done in under 5 minutes, set up some Google Alerts this week for your company to help you effectively scan the social media horizon and we'll cover more free online "listening posts" next Tuesday.

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Flickr Photo Credit: Theory