For those in sales and marketing looking to figure out how to use social media in order to boost connections with our customers and prospects, here's a white paper put out by Microsoft's Ad Sales team.  It talks about not only what they are doing with Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc., but also how they measure success and justify the time spent. 

http://bit.ly/bIU7Gh

Also, you might want to check out the Social Media B2B blog at http://socialmediab2b.com/.  That blog has several hosts who have been posting lots of good ideas for using social media in the B2B environment. 

We're at a stage where we need to be actively looking for examples of how others use social media, and not feel like we have to invent these best practices ourselves.  And that includes how reporters and editors can use social media to build their print and online following, source story ideas, find experts and build community around content.  If you have examples to share, please do so.