One of the most common reasons people are hesitant to integrate social media into their marketing plan is that they don't understand what the basic benefits are, or know where to start. I find it helpful sometimes to get back to basics when thinking about such things, so that's what I want to do today. Let's start with so called buzz monitoring, which is what I often recommend when someone asks me where they should start...

"Buzz monitoring" as a term has entered the social media vernacular to describe listening to what is going on out there in relation to your company. In the main this refers to looking into any mentions of your brand on blogs, in social networks, in forums etc and, if appropriate, responding to them or taking some sort of action, even if it is just to make a note of it. It isn't just about mentions of your brand though; look at what your competitiors are doing; see what hot topics are being discussed; and look at what is going on in your industry.

Before you can start blogging, Twittering, a group on Facebook or whatever, you have to know what is going on around you; you have to start to listen. I recommend starting a buzz meeting once a week, invite relevant people in your company to it. Task each person with looking at a different area, ideally an area they specialise in for example, whether that's a product, service or an area of expertise such as PR. Set up a netvibes dashboard (a free page where you can add and organise your RSS feeds) with each tab representing an area of interest, for example: competitors, mentions etc. Ask everyone to bring at least two things to the meeting to discuss. As well as being subjects for discussion these meetings also provide subjects for blog posts, seed ideas for future campaigns, bring previously buried problems to the fore...

You can buy automated software to crawl the web and flag up mentions of your brand (or anything else you are tracking mentions of) but it is also possible to do it without software tools, just using RSS feeds and blog search and feeding this all into one page, such as netvibes.

Spend two hours a week doing this and you will soon reap the rewards in terms of being more aware of what is going on around you. Do it for two or three months and then maybe you will feel more confident to move to the next stage... blogging (which I will post about soon)!