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If there’s any doubt that experts tout the benefits of using social media and its accompanying tools, those doubts can quickly be put to rest with even the quickest perusal of the latest sales books.

Four of those books recently came to the attention of Agency Sales, and while each of them offers a slightly different take of the value of social media, all of them highly recommend its use by independent sales representatives.

First up is a past contributor to these pages, Mark Hunter. In his book, High-Profit Selling (published in 2012 by American Management Association, 274 pp., $19.95), Hunter focuses on the pressing need to achieve greater profit in sales by selling to those occupants of a customer’s “ C-suite.” By C-suite he means that area of a company occupied by individuals with titles such as COO, CEO, or senior vice president.

To gain success in those lofty areas, he emphasizes that gaining a referral to the C-suite “is done by developing relationships with other people in the company you are targeting, or even with other CEOs, by way of social media.”

Developing Relationships

He goes on to advise that “…you do want to develop relationships through social, media sites with other people in the company you are targeting. Use discussion groups and other social media tools to develop these relationships as professional relationships, allowing people to get to know your level of expertise. The object of this process is to reach the C-suite in a roundabout manner. There is a strong likelihood that, at some point, one of the people with whom you have developed a professional relationship through social media is going to be sitting in a meeting with the CEO discussing a subject that matches what you can provide, so the person might mention you and suggest a meeting. In that case, your referral to the C-suite is coming by way of your contacts with someone else in the company. This is a much more effective way to reach the C-suite than trying to sell your way up through the company.”

Sharing Information

Equally enthusiastic about the opportunities that social media provide salespeople are authors Eli Jones, Larry Chonko, Fern Jones and Carl Stevens in Selling ASAP: Art, Science, Agility, Performance (published in 2012 by LSU Press, 199 pp.,$29.95. In their book they note that “People are sharing lots of useful information online by way of social networks, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, to name a few. Social media encourages sharing and interaction, from product awareness to product discussions, from targeting potential customers to building and maintaining good business relationships.”

Adele Revella continues to stress those aforementioned points when she asks, “Is your buyer on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or any of the other many social networks?” In her book Buyer Personas (published this year by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 215 pp., $25), she notes, “If the answer is yes, your next question is whether the buyer is doing anything through that social network that helps you understand how he or she makes the decision you want to influence.

“As the use of social media is changing rapidly, we can’t answer this question for you. However, the nature of social media means that it is easy for you to join each of these networks and find the answer for yourself. Want to know if your buyer is on Twitter? Join yourself and use any of a dozen tools to monitor activity of keywords related to your solution or category. Most customer service organizations are already taking this step, so they may also be able to provide this data for you.”

The Means to an End

If all this isn’t enough to convince even the most casual observer of the importance of social media, consider what William “Skip” Miller offers in Proactive Selling (second edition, Anacom Books, 240 pp., $17.95).

Miller cautions that “Social media is not the end, but the means. To use social media is not a goal in itself, but a way to achieve specific goals. Thus, the first step in a social media plan is to decide just what you expect to achieve through these new technologies.”

He continues to advise how important it is to take what he calls “Baby Steps.” “To do your homework and get the answers you need, start by talking with current top salespeople you know, and of course to your current customers. You’ll discover that different people tend to use different social media, be it blogs, vlogs, following, tags, SEO, SEM, iChat, podcasts, WebEx meetings, or Twitter. You can bet someone is using something, and as a proactive salesperson, you need to get up to speed.

“Listening is also important. You should implement at least a rudimentary listening platform, such as a NLP or Crucial Conversations.

“Finally, build a starting place to hold your conversations. And by this, I mean a social media platform.”