Hundreds of books and articles have been written about social media. But most fail to show that Twitter and other networks are of the slightest use to B2B marketers.

Usage patterns suggest that there is more talk than action on the b2b front.

A recent survey showed that only 38% of all business-to-business companies use social media, compared with 71% of the consumer marketers polled.

Their main obstacles? Lack of knowledge and inability to measure results. (For more results, see earlier blog post.

There are other reasons for this lack of belief. One is that many business people lack the time to go on social networks. Then there’s the resource issue.

Still, 38% is hardly a small number. It suggests that these tools do have their uses, and that it’s time to get active on them if you haven’t already.

What can the social networks do for you? First, they can help you reach customers who are attracted to what pundits call the real-time Web.

Facebook and LinkedIn pages are easy to create. And you can start or join subject groups, and use them to reach prime prospects. We devour the frequent updates sent right to our mailbox by LinkedIn’s B2B Online Marketing Group. (Why focus on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter? Because they seem to be the most popular sites. As one expert says, “MySpace is so 2007.)

Even better, the social networks allow you control the dialogue about your business. And they’re risk-free, compared with the more expensive activity of texting to mobile phones.

Interested in becoming part of the 38% that uses social media? (we expect it will be up to 50% within a few months). Here are some guidelines for the novice, drawn from multiple sources:

1. Never use social media in isolation. There’s no such thing as a pure-play strategy. You also need a Web site and a strong email program. (Email remains the workhorse). Use all three channels to develop an online base, and don’t neglect b2b lead generation tools like co-registration. On a more mundane level, do what some experts suggest when posting an article or blog item: Send multiple tweets, each highlighting a different point. And link back to the original article or post.

2. Set goals and keep a scorecard. The direct marketer in you may rebel at measuring vague concepts like “influence,” but you don’t have to stop there. It’s easy to monitor traffic and other metrics that document audience participation. Set goals, align your dashboards to track these metrics, and watch your spending. And go where the numbers tell you to go.

3. Use the social media as your listening post. Why spend money on research and focus groups when you can learn by the hour what customers think? And why be passive when you see an unfair or inaccurate statement? You can respond right away. Yes, you may read some rough stuff in blogs and on Twitter—pundits call social network commentary “black gold.” But the positives outweigh the negatives.

4. Encourage everyone in your company to tweet. Granted, it pays to have a skilled Web copywriter on hand, but that may not be possible when you’re fighting for every budget dollar. Draw on the pools of knowledge available on your staff. As one expert writes, a tech support person should answer technical questions posed on Twitter. In fact, the non-writers on your team may be better than the pros in achieving a personal tone.

5. Avoid the hard sell. Just as you would in an email newsletter, offer content of value to the reader, and stop dwelling on your own excellence. Vic Schwab, co-founder of the old Schwab & Beatty direct response agency, put it this way:
Tell me quick and tell me true
Or else my friend to hell with you
Less on how this product came to be
and more on what it does for me.