At Cisco, we view our relationship with Partners as symbiotic. We do all we can to equip you with the tools, resources and support you need to be successful. One of the ways we do this is through the Cisco Marketing Velocity Program.

The program contains a variety of free tools, resources and events that our partners can use to augment your marketing efforts and accelerate sales. These include On-the-Air learning webcasts, demand generation and outbound marketing resources, and social media best practices. You can also become a Partner Marketing Professional by completing the curriculum.

At Cisco, we create integrated marketing communications (IMC) plans, focused on developing marketing strategies and campaigns that weave together all of the different marketing disciplines -advertising, PR, promotion, assets and especially social media -with the end result of driving Cisco branding in everything we do. This approach is exactly what Sherri Liebo talked about in her Super Voice blog.

Social media is great because it can be personal and interactive. It's immediate and easy to facilitate, making it a great way to connect with customers. In a book I've been reading recently,Untangling the World's Most Misunderstood Business Trend, Mark Schaefer discusses the fact that when humans started to sell things to each other, they all came together in a marketplace. It was a very personal and interactive experience. In the age of radio and TV, selling became very one-way, and not interactive at all.

Social media is taking us back to that original marketplace -or watering hole, if you will -where we can connect personally and interactively. It's in a different way, of course, than in the early days, but it's getting us back to that consistent, personal set of interactions. It's important to realize that the small, one-on-one interactions are what bring us together as people and ultimately create loyal customers.

Partners can use this same strategy to quickly reach customers through all stages of the buying process. The key is remembering to share only relevant, timely and important content for your audience; otherwise you will lose their attention. Once that happens, it can be very difficult to get back. You also need to be consistent and engage with your audience often, ensuring there is a dialogue going on rather than just pushing out content that falls on deaf ears.

Our Social Media best practices are available on the  Marketing Velocity site to help you accelerate your social media efforts.

Cisco partners run the gamut from small to large businesses, but all businesses, regardless of size, can benefit from these more consistent, day-to-day interactions with their customers. Regardless of whether you have a dedicated team available to run your social media program, Cisco has resources that can help. Even if you are just one person looking to either enhance your program or create one, we're here to help you get that program off the ground.

On that note, Cisco has an upcoming Marketing Velocity event on September 9, called "Amplify Your Voice: Reach More Customers with Content-Driven Social Media." This webinar will offer advice on how to consistently and effectively reach and engage more customers by integrating compelling content into a powerful social media strategy.

As always, we love to hear how you think we're doing, so please share your feedback in the comments section below.