An article on Internetnews indicated that in a tough economy CRM activities will be integrated into social networking. Business/customer relations will be focused on high-value activities.

"It is not enough to ensure business value in new projects; enterprises will begin focusing on customer retention instead of customer acquisition to stay afloat, Forrester predicts. 'During an economic recession, sustaining revenue growth - or forestalling revenue erosion - becomes even more critical,' the company wrote."

Companies will focus on a great customer experience which will benefit all involved.

Not all social networking tools are created equal. Each has a purpose and few are multipurpose. Web sites like Facebook, MySpace and other of the same genre are tailored to connecting friends, family, and acquaintences. However, their structure and functionality is not conducive to professional promotion.

Networks like ProSPOTLIGHT, LinkedIn, among others, are designed specifically to help pros get connected with other pros, leads, potential partners, etc. Using these tools correctly can greatly enhance the visibility of your offerings for other web users. The key is to use the correct tools correctly to achieve your objective.

3 tips for starters:

• Determine what you want to accomplish - If you are a professional trying to get connected with others you ought to lay out a few goals to figure out what you want to achieve.
• Search out networks that will help you achieve your goals - Invest your time in the tools that will help you get where you want. It may sound obvious, but don't spend time in activities that won't help you significantly. We can get caught up in working on tools that are fun but don't get us anywhere.
• Be consistently active on the communities you choose - Search engines and other readers are interested in current, relevant content. Keep your user accounts active by frequently making updates.

We have tested the professional applications of several social networks. We'll get into those reviews in later posts. We'd be interested in your comments as well as you make posts on your ProSPOTLIGHT.