How can businesses use social media to shorten the sales cycle? And how can marketers measure the ROI of their social media investments? These are questions that every business needs to ask and answer.

Large companies are already asking them—and some are actively trying to figure it out. This area is fast-evolving, and definitive answers aren't available yet. Nevertheless, it's clear to me that marketers can deploy social media to shorten the sales cycle—and that measuring success will be no harder than it is for comparable conventional marketing programs.

Shortening the sales cycle—and accelerating revenue—begins with shrinking the buying process.

Nine Steps to a Buying Decision

This diagram depicts the nine steps prospects typically traverse before they make a buying decision:

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