By Michael Stodola Special to OnMilwaukee.com Published Nov 23, 2009 at 9:03 AM

I'm finishing up a wonderful book about the effective use of social media, titled "Trust Agents."

Written by a top 100 Technorati-ranked blogger, Chris Brogan, and trend analyst, Julien Smith, this read is becoming "the guide" to using social media and networking at large.

We have all read a blog or two, shared opinions about products online or at least Facebooked, but the ideas and advice these two fellas give about the social media scene is where the "rubber meets the road," as they say.

One of the first nuggets advises you to build a "listening station." There are several free tools out there that you can use to find what's being said about you, your company and your competitors. Here's a good way to start:

  • Set-up a Gmail account at www.gmail.com. This allows you to access several Google tools.
  • Go to google.com/reader. This will become your listening station.
  • Go to technorati.com. Type your name, in quotes, in the search bar.
  • When the results page comes up, right-click on the little orange RSS button.
  • Go back to Google Reader, click the blue plus button and paste what you copied in there.

Repeat this process for your company, products or anything you desire to keep up with. You can also try out blogsearch.google.com or searchtwitter.com, not to mention YouTube.

While I found a few things about myself, I found it most useful to follow conversations about my clients and their competitors. It takes some decent organizational skills and general patience, but the payoff is fantastic.

Recently, one of my colleagues penned a blog post about his frustrations with Hardees's Restaurants. A day later, a tweet about the blog came from the Hardees's corporation itself, thanking him for the mention. Obviously, Mr. Hardee is working the listening station.

So, what do you think is being said about you?

These are just a few tools that plug you into the now; that help you become a "Trust Agent."

Michael Stodola Special to OnMilwaukee.com
Michael Stodola is the Creative Director at Boelter + Lincoln – a Milwaukee advertising agency. He loves his job, but not as much as he loves scuba diving, crab cakes or playing with his kids. His favorite thing is sneaking off for dates with his hottie wife. Born and raised in Nebraska, he’s been calling Milwaukee home for well over 10 years. After Michael’s impending death, he’d like to return to this world as your next American Idol®.