When most company bosses think about Facebook, Twitter and all those other oh-so-fashionable darlings of the social world, it is usually about how they stop their employees wasting their valuable time on those sites.

Yet a small but growing number of chief executives are coming to realise that social networks offer significant opportunities for marketing and selling their products, for engaging with their customers at a deep level and for using them to guide new product development.

Some big businesses are recognising the value of social media by employing dedicated employees to handle their interaction with these communities. Car company Ford appointed Scott Monty as its head of social media and he has already amassed almost 20,000 followers on Twitter (twitter.com/scottmonty).

"We're increasing brand awareness and changing perception, even if just one person at at time. We're also humanising the company, allowing people to connect directly with the people of Ford and we're giving consumers ways to interact with each other about our products. The end result is that people begin to see that Ford is different," Monty says.

"As you might expect, every day at work is different. I'm up early, checking email and Twitter messages, then participating in my first meetings by 7:30 or 8:00 a.m., where the communications team is aligned. I receive a constant barrage of messages throughout the day as I'm sitting in on meetings with various stakeholders, from IT to customer service, marketing to product communications. I'll comment on blogs, update some of our social network pages, meet with vendors, hold agency meetings, prepare a presentation, do an interview - you get the idea."

Procter&Gamble and Coca Cola are other companies who have specialists focusing on social media, but one of the biggest success stories from engaging with social media has been the US shoe retailer Zappos (www.zappos.com).

Hundreds of employees of the company are using Twitter and other social media to tell the company’s customers exactly what they are doing right now. It has created a en enormous buzz around the company and the implementation of ideas garnered from its regular interactions with its clients has driven it to become hugely successful.

Not everyone is convinced. A survey by Epsilon found that 55 per cent of chief marketing officers at blue-chip brands were not interested in incorporating social-networking sites into their marketing strategies. At the same time, the survey found that 27 per cent identified social networking and word of mouth as the tool they most want to introduce to their marketing mix to compensate for anticipated budget cuts.

Dave Balter, author of the Word of Mouth Manual and founder of the BzzAgent network, says: “Twitter is an amazing product. It has furthered the idea that social connectivity is about the communications between people. The hard part about Twitter for marketers is that people are on there to connect with each other. The brands are trying to find a way to play within that rather than a place to connect with brands. It’s going to take some time to find the best ways to do that.”

Madeleine Wood of digital agency iCrossing says that engaging with social networks is not necessarily about monetising that audience but about customer relationship management and product development.

The agency has developed a proprietary tool that allows its clients to see just where the conversation about their brand is taking place, what is being said and who is saying it. This agency then gives guidance on how to engage with or respond to that conversation.

KDS, a company which develops technology for the travel industry, is using social media extensively. Stanislas Berteloot, the company’s marketing director, says: “Social media, blogs and Twitter all contribute to what a brand is on the internet. It is also important because Google ranking depends on the number of citations and links available for a given search. Carefully managing your online profile will maximize your personal brand online while boosting your Google exposure.”

He adds: “We are using social media to reach out to a broader audience. Social media is really a bottom-up conversation. It is our users speaking to our staff. Forget the polished press release, today’s communication is 140 characters long on Twitter.”

However, he adds a note of caution. “Handle Facebook with caution. One needs to be there because everyone is there, but watch out because personal life borders the professional one… Learn to play with the privacy settings and, above all, create a public profile for your business."