>>>>>If I am trying to win new business by trying to attract people to my website how relevant is social media in the mix - do businesses really have time to look at social media and would they instinctively respond to sales messages on social media?
>>>>
>>>>Define: Social media
>>>>
>>>>:)
>>>>
>>>>There are those business net works like the X thING. At least it es better then nothing. I know that a lot of people hang around there. But this is networking - you need to be active in those networks.
>>>>
>>>>A own web site alone will do nothing, It's rather a way to make your existens a bit more real (For example have a look at http://mashupx.com/ Says not much)
>>>>It's rating will be to low to be found anyway.
>>>>If you like to pay google for a higher ranking. :) There are competitors that just click the links to generate losses for you. Have seen such behaviour.
>>>>
>>>>my EUR 0.02
>>>
>>>Twitter and facebook
>>>
>>>I want to sell products to businesses - how useful is Social Media as a too and do we have any case histories?
>>
>>If you like to do business use XING. This is closely monitored, and I know people that look for partners there. But again, it's mostly a door opener.
>>
>>Twitter - there might be lists that do business, but you need to be inside. Own list would be a hard job - or luck - to attrackt enough followers to be remarkable.
>>
>>Facebook - would you realy give all your business contacts, ideas etc. to Mark Zuckerberg? You now, you would accept it by using Facebook. (What in my eyes simply disqualify anybody for making business. If somebody is dealing with it's data in FaceBook how will he handle mine? Will he have a all day active facebook tracing anything he's doing in the web? How this influence me, the customer?)
>
>Makes a lot of sense

LinkedIn (as mentioned by Daniel), XING, the like are better.
I think the folks doing business will not look to much on bird feed media like twitter / facebook.

And - you can learn from your competitors. Look what and where they doing. :)