iCrossing's VP of corporate strategy advises marketers on how to listen to consumer-supported social networks, and how to be useful to them.

In the past few weeks, going online has taken a particularly personal turn. My wife and I welcomed the arrival of our first child at the end of April, and with the resulting decrease in free time and mobility and the increasing need for a whole new universe of goods and services, the online search-research-purchase cycle has assumed a new degree of importance. Similarly, moving into a new stage of life has brought new information needs and new levels of engagement with social networks. Whereas previously I considered myself a casual user of social media sites, I now consume these voraciously. Engaging in conversations, whether actively or passively, provides me with answers that I cannot get elsewhere: real-world data that might affect my purchase decision.

This kind of dialog long predates the meteoric rise of online social networks. Content has always connected us as consumers, and similarly, we have always found ways to share our thoughts and feelings about what we've consumed. The dramatic change that has taken place in the past few years enables us to capture, create and share our own content, moving us in essence from a one-to-one model (the proverbial water-cooler conversation) to a one-to-many model, opening our opinions to networks that span space and time.

As I mentioned in my column last month, these conversations are going to take place, whether we like it or not, so it is to our advantage as marketers to embrace them. One of my colleagues at Spannerworks, iCrossing's U.K. subsidiary, likes to talk about two very simple rules of social media: 1) listen to your networks, and 2) be useful to them. Listening is the easier of the two (providing you're really open to hearing what others have to say), given the broad range of tools that help automate the process by mapping and scanning social networks. Being useful is more challenging, but can be approached from a number of different perspectives, the watchword in each case being "proactive."

As marketers, we can embrace what consumers in their networks are saying about our brands, products and services, and enter the conversations in an effort to involve vocal users in improving those products and services. We can also energize those same networks, effectively turning customers into evangelists. And finally, knowing that many consumers now turn to the internet to resolve product service and support issues, we can provide our networks with the answers and help they need to solve their problems. In so doing, we may also be able to prevent small issues from mushrooming into much larger ones.

All three types of programs represent tremendous opportunities to build and retain relationships with customers, learn how they view our brands and our products and, in the process, have a voice in the discussion. The latter approach, which we call proactive customer engagement, is particularly applicable to any company that would like to maintain strong ties with its customers on the one hand, while encouraging a degree of self-reliance (i.e., self-service) on the other.

We adopted this approach with palmOne after the maker of the popular Treo smart phone learned that many of its customers were gravitating to online communities started by and for Treo users to get answers to technical support questions about the Treo.

Because many of these conversations were taking place outside of palmOne's online technical support resources, there was an opportunity for the company to enter the discussion and provide a communication bridge to its customers. In order to be useful to the community of Treo owners, our team trained to become experts in answering technical and product-related questions in a palmOne representative "voice." In this case, being useful meant interacting with the most active networks as palmOne representatives, responding to questions and comments about the Treo and directing customers to solutions within the palmOne online database. Most importantly, being useful meant providing these solutions in the language of the communities, not in the language of marketers. In other words, we approached customers as peers, not as acquisition targets, which helped win their trust. Reaching out to them with answers and taking an active interest in their communities also helped increase affinity for the brand. These are best practices that go hand-in-hand with being proactive.

The growing intersection of social media and search means that your brand's reputation is on full view at all times, with opinions good, bad and indifferent available to all. You may not be able to control the shape and direction of these conversations, but neither should you let them take place without you. Customers appreciate genuine, peer-to-peer interaction, and engaging with them can not only drive trust and loyalty but also uncover issues and opportunities that you may not have been aware of. By listening to your customers, you can help them and help them to help you.

Noah Elkin, Ph.D., is vice president of corporate strategy at iCrossing. Read full bio.