Recently, a colleague mentioned to me that she’d finally been given the ‘ok’ to setup a Twitter account for her company. This individual had been working at getting permission for this for quite some time, so it was a huge victory for her.

Here’s the hitch…she was given permission to broadcast messages to their Followers but not to respond to any messages. Weird, huh?

There seems to be a misguided belief that if you don’t talk to people, they won’t talk back. Or at the very least you won’t have to respond when people do talk to you.

It’s the equivalent of burying your head in the sand. While you’re digging around in the sand your customers are hijacking your brand.

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And you are consciously doing nothing about it.

I certainly understand the fear. Fear is expected. Fear is normal. You’re not alone in that fear.

Social media is still very new and, although it’s talked about everywhere, there are still very few people who have a clear understanding of exactly what to do with it.

But what should scare you even more is the prospect of not knowing what’s being said about your brand. Plus, just as important, by not being present and hearing what your customers and prospects have to say, you’re missing out on some business opportunities.

You don’t have to jump in both feet first. You can take small steps to begin to understand what’s taking place out there and then plan your approach based on what you learn. Start with a plan to LISTEN.

Here’s how I recommend you start:

  1. Setup a Google Reader account.
  2. Make a list of 3-5 key brand terms/products and setup a few Google Alerts. Set them up as Feeds rather than having them delivered via e-mail. If you are logged in to your new Google Reader account, they will automatically be added there.
  3. Go to www.search.twitter.com. Enter those key brand terms/products into the search box. Click Feed for this query in the top right corner of the search results page. Copy and paste the resulting URL into your Google Reader account.
  4. Go to www.socialmention.com and enter a couple of those key brand/product terms from your list in step 2. Be sure to put your terms in quotes or you risk ending up with a lot of irrelevant noise. Then click the RSS Feed button in the top right corner. Copy and paste the resulting URL into your Google Reader account.
  5. Schedule time to be sure you are looking at your Google Reader at least three times each week. Actually make an appointment with yourself so you don’t put it off or find the week’s passed without looking.

That’s it. The five steps above should take you less than an hour.

Given the intro story to this post, I do realize it is somewhat hypocritical of me to tell you to go out and just listen without responding, but I think you’ll find once you get out there that it’s very difficult NOT to respond. Soon, you’ll want to start engaging in conversation and applying the things you learn to your business.

Go on. Try it. Let me know how it goes.