If you think you are ready to incorporate social media into your business, start by listening. Here's how to do it:
Set up a free gmail account by registering at www.gmail.com.
Log in to Google Reader (www.google.com/reader) using your new gmail address and password. This will become your home base for listening.
Then in a new browser window, go to Google Blogsearch (http//blogsearch.google.com). In the blog search field, type in some keywords relating to your company, your organisation and your competitors.
On the left hand side of the results page, there are several 'Subscribe' links, one of which is 'RSS'. Right-click the RSS link, and select the 'copy link' option.
Then go back to the Google Reader window, click the 'Add Subscription' link, and paste the link into the subscription window. Then click 'Add'.
Repeat this for as many variations of searches you want for blogs. Your Google Reader home page will now automatically show an ongoing newsfeed of information as Google picks up more and more information that relates to the searches to which you have subscribed.
Then perform the same searches at Technorati (http://www.technorati.com) and Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com) and copy/paste the relevant RSS links into your Google reader. No platform finds all the information, so cross-posting works.
Fine tune your searches by seeing what inaccurate results come from your first attempts, and replace bad searches with better ones
Sort the results you receive using Google Reader. When you find something to note, either share it using the menu buttons that appear below each result, or email it to a core team. Send only the important stuff. Let internal employees see either the RSS feed of the shared items, or just use the email feature. By doing this, you can sort the information into smaller and more useful packets that your organisation can consume.
