Did you know that Social Media is a great way to get a feel for what your market is thinking? You can create a specific campaign to gather information as well as monitor your brand on the interwebs. The 2 really work hand in hand – what people are saying about you can and should affect how you engage with them. Here are a few quick steps that you can follow today:

1. Listen for your brand being mentioned across the web. Services like Google Alert and Saved Searches in Seesmic for Twitter make it easy to view a running thread of what others are saying about your company name.

2. Set up something apart from your business as usual website – think blog, Facebook Fan Page – great place to ask your fans questions. Conversely, encourage them to leave feedback good, bad or ugly. Generally, as long as you deal with it timely and effectively any and all feedback, even the bad stuff doesn’t have to be detrimental to your brand.

3. Remember that people will talk honestly and openly about your products and services in open forums. Get out there and find out where these forums are. You may have to go off the beaten track – there is more than just Twitter and Facebook. Some of your raving fans (or even haters, see People of Walmart) will setup their own groups on blogs and Ning platforms- its worth doing a search there.

The proactive person will not only monitor brand mentions, etc..but will respond and engage with the community as well as refine processes where needed. Remember to be transparent at all times. If you are going to jump into a forum discussion, make sure to say who you are – don’t just get in there and gloat about what a fantastic company you have.

How are you using web 2.0 to find out what your market thinks about your brand? If you aren’t using this method yet, how could you?

Seems every business owner and their dog is blogging. That is probably because the benefits to your company can be vast if done properly. If you are already blogging, I’m sure you’ve read about how it is good for driving traffic to your site if update regularly (for starters, Google loves all the new content). But what if your blog is just not bringing the sizzle and it does not actually have any readers. Have you assessed who you are trying to attract, is it inline with what you are blogging about? Are you giving them a reason to actually visit your blog?

Often times people forget what I like to call the 1-2 punch of blogging. First, through your blog you want to evoke an emotion or a feeling from your readers. The second part of the punch is to add value above and beyond your normal product offering.

A great reason to blog is to give personality to your comapny or brand. This is a space online where you can explore not just what your company does, but what feeling do you want your business to evoke in people. Take for example if you own a clothing business for kids. The fact of the matter is that you create clothes to clothe people, the squishy feely part of the business is that you create clothes to keep precious little people safe and protected from the elements. How could you turn an emotion such as “safety” and “protection” into a blog post that will attract your readers? Remember, people are often driven by emotion when making a purchase. How can you drive that emotional pull through the roof?

Ok, so your an online shop selling the same goods as about 25 other bazillion shops around the world. With your blog, you can set yourself apart by adding an extra service such as a regular how-to feature (care for, clean, match, etc…), downloadable ecards, other uses of your product, client testimonials and success stories are all great uses for your company blog. If your regular feature is engaging enough, it will bring people back, um, regularly of course. Leave the selling of the product to your actual product website. Don’t forget to get your readers involved – polls, requests for feedback and other interactive elements also make a successful blog.

Think about a feeling your business can evoke in others. Can you deliver the 1-2 punch through blogging?

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