There is a deservedly famous scene in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorcese, 1976) where Travis Bickle, the lead character played by Robert de Niro, tries various lines and deliveries in front of a mirror, angrily and seemingly puzzled at an imagined effrontery, and exclaims “Are you talkin’ to me?!”

This is what I imagine most traditional marketers’ expressions and words to be in the face of the social media explosion: surprised that their consumers are talking to them. And in many cases, talking back.  As well as upset at the loss of control of their carefully crafted messages, unsure of whether to do anything about it, then unsure of what to do.  And in my own reenactment of the Taxi Driver scene, with brands as Travis Bickle, I envision the mirror talking back, in the voice of consumers: “Are you talking to me?!” “Yes, but are you listening to us?”

Since the once one-way monologue from brands to consumers has irreversibly mutated into a multi-way conversations thanks to social media, the need to listen has become a critical part of any marketer’s must-do list.

One could even say that listening to what consumers are saying about your brand, which has been called many things from Social Media Monitoring to Buzz Monitoring to Social Listening, is a matter of survival.  Here are a few reasons why:

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A few weeks ago, I was asked to share some of my favorite social media tools with iMedia Connection.  Here is a re-post of that article and a few of my favorite applications - some free and some paid - that are worth their weight in marketing gold.

Article Highlights:

• Social Mention gives a great snapshot of blog, forum, and microblog buzz, sentiment, and keywords
• Radian6 and Alterian’s SM2 offer solid analytical tools, easy-to-use interfaces, powerful data retrieval, and more
• Quantcast and Compete are both free resources for basic metrics such as site/blog traffic, user demographics, page views, and unique visitors

In many ways, 2009 was the year of the “a-ha!” moment for social media marketing. While many people long-involved with social media and word-of-mouth marketing knew it was only a matter of time for the masses to embrace this type of marketing, others were just starting to get their arms around the importance of establishing and leveraging their social footprint to build engagement, dialogue, and awareness.

As more companies, brands, and individuals are building their social media presences, the universe of online tools — which used to be somewhat more limited — continues to expand on a daily basis. Not only do we have more choices in how we place content and measure social media, but the tools available to us also change and improve just as frequently.

To provide a little background on me: I run a social media marketing agency (KARMA Media Labs) that helps organizations and individuals connect with their target audiences and build word of mouth in the communities where they live. In order to find these audiences and strike a chord, it’s important to be armed with the right tools to listen to what is being said, find the right influencers, communicate with your audience in a way that is relevant, and provide content that is likely to be shared.

The following is a list of some my favorite tools and sites — some free, some paid — that have been worth their weight in gold in not only finding that desired audience and key influencers, but also putting the right content in front of them to build conversation and word of mouth.

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A few weeks ago, I was asked by Lisa Lacy on behalf of ClickZ why MTV’s Jersey Shore has become so popular through social media and conditions for the “perfect storm”.

‘Jersey Shore’ Builds Momentum with Social Apps

By Lisa Lacy, ClickZ, Jan 20, 2010

When actor Michael Cera got his hair blown out by Jersey Shore’s DJ Pauly D in a cross-promotional effort for Cera’s new film, Youth in Revolt, it was a new high for MTV’s hit reality show.

The show’s basic premise is similar to over 20 preceding seasons in MTV’s Real World franchise, yet Snooki, Vinny and the rest of the gang have reached an unprecedented level of cultural saturation. According to Nielsen, 1.4 million viewers tuned in to the premiere on December 4. And numbers have steadily risen since then, culminating in 3.6 million viewers tuning in on January 14.

That’s thanks in part to MTV’s efforts to harness organic buzz and create branded content. The company has launched a Twitter integration, exclusive online videos, and is preparing new features such as a character generator and an iPhone app.

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How we interact with our customers has changed a great deal over the last century and a half and is morphing even more rapidly than ever before.

Once upon a time, if your customers had an issue with your products or services, they would hop on their horse and gallop to the local store and speak to someone face to face. This very personal interaction would encourage the business to work closely with the customer to resolve the issue or face the possibility of that person telling the whole town how bad the store is.

Then along came the telephone and businesses had to establish call centers to stay connected to their patrons. The customers now had a choice - visit a physical location for help or just pick up the phone from the comfort of their own home. While this new era of options was a positive development overall, it gave some companies the option to hide from their customers behind a menu system and switchboard. They no longer had to look a customer in the eye and tell them that they couldn’t help them with their issue. However, the customer still had the option to tell their friends about their bad experience so the risk to the business of not assisting their customers was still relatively high. The only difference is that those conversations would happen one-to-one in person or during a phone chat so the risk of a lot of people finding out about poor service was relatively low.

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I was thinking today about how we used to communicate before computers and email and blogs and cell phones and text messages and social networks.  In general, we had 3 big options:

Option 1: Walk up to a person and open our traps.  That person would then open theirs and so on, and so on. Presto. An in-person conversation. If you were lucky, you would avoid an argument and end with a nice hand shake or a warm hug.

Option 2: Write a letter on a piece of paper – most appropriate when traveling or after receiving that “great” gift from Grandma (Dear Nana – Thank you so much for the peach polyester sweater with the pink elephants on it.  I will wear it to high school every day.  Love you!).  You actually had to sit down, think about your thoughts and either write them exactly as they appeared in your head or utilize a pencil with an eraser to correct bad spelling and grammar on the fly.  Address the envelope, stamp it, fold your letter, insert, seal and drop it in the mailbox.

Option 3: That  involved the telephone – not the one that travels with us no matter where we go. This one might have had a rotary dial and could have been the Princess model, with hopefully a nice long twisted cord so you could stretch it across the room and behind the door to the basement in order to chat with the boy that drove you absolutely crazy at school.  You couldn’t even leave a message on a machine – if no one answered, you tried again a little later hoping they would have arrived back home.  But you would keep trying and eventually, you would have an actual conversation with the person you wanted to talk to.

Now, while all of these options are still available, we have become a very different society, where people can be reached pretty much any place they are and if they are not there, we can leave them a message to force them to get back to us ASAP.

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