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Social media marketing may have trouble shedding its “Wild West” image — which is a shame, given how it’s being used. Even though it feels unstructured and wide open, the reality for most companies is that the use of social media is carefully managed. According to a new study by MarketingSherpa, 68 percent of the businesses surveyed have either a formal or informal process for monitoring target audience dialogue about brands and the competition. Sixty-six percent have informal processes regarding defining objectives for social media space.

This is not a shoot-from-the-hip approach to marketing.

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A decade ago, the CRM sector was hitting its stride. The commericialization of the web made it possible for businesses to keep better track of their customers, marketing initiatives and the revenue associated with each, with the evolution of software as a service (SaaS) making it even more accessible and powerful. The next iteration in the maturity of CRM is social media. Beyond the nebulous benefits of connecting with existing and new clients via this increasingly popular channel, there are steps you can take to use tools like Twitter and LinkedIn to extend your CRM capabilities.

The stakes are high, of course. Forrester Research estimates that around 75 percent of adults online in the United States use social media platforms, so there’s a decent chance that a meaningful portion of your target market can be found in this environment. The challenge then becomes … what do you do with this access?

Like Forrester, I agree that you need to dodge the hype and get right down to business. There are plenty of specific ways you can extend your CRM capabilities into the social media space, from monitoring client satisfaction trends to identifying pain points that can be used in pursuing new business. The potential is easy enough to identify — execution tends to be the tough part.

So, here are five suggestions from Forrester on how to get started … with an enter:marketing twist:

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Everything we’re seeing and hearing in the channel partner and IT manufacturer space is that everyone’s going “social.” Computer software and hardware companies, we published last week, are increasingly turning to this form of marketing. Fifty-five percent of them, according to a MarketingSherpa survey, are increasing their social media marketing budgets, with only 5 percent cutting back.

But, what are they hoping to accomplish?

That’s been the unanswered question for IT manufacturers and resellers. Everyone knows that social is the place to be, but few are sure of the reasons why. We’ve always maintained that social media marketing must be integrated into a company’s larger marketing plan and that clear objectives should be defined.

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