Right now, someone from Company X, which you want to turn into a customer, is posting a question within an industry group on LinkedIn. That company’s head of finance just Tweeted a link to an article that mentions your brand. And Facebook shows that tomorrow’s the CEO’s birthday.

Just as the fax machine, e-mail, and cell phones all fundamentally changed how companies and the people within them communicated, social media networks are now doing the same for business. And smart companies today, instead of just using social networks to occasionally post a link to a corporate press release, are finding that by actively engaging in these social channels, they’re able to not only tap into relevant conversations with existing and potential customers, but also proactively head off negative interactions by establishing more fruitful — and, ironically, real — customer relationships.

Visage Mobile’s CEO, Bzur Haun — himself a pretty active Twitterer — sat down with Koka Sexton, the community manager for InsideView, which provides third-party sales intelligence as a service. They broke down some basic steps of “social selling,” including the first steps organizations should take when they decide to get active online.

Ultimately, the line dividing “friend” from “customer” is blurring. By embracing the social aspect of selling — by having real, actual conversations with people, you can erase it entirely. Here is Part I of Haun and Sexton’s interview. Parts II and III will come later this week.

Top image from Corbis via BankLawyersBlog.com.