HOW TO: Gather Feedback With Social Media

MASHABLE — One of the best uses of social media for business is being able to monitor your brand. Services like Twitter search and Facebook search make it easy to see each time someone mentions your company, while third-party applications like TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop allow you to get real-time updates pushed to your desktop and instantly reply. But what if you want to proactively get feedback about your business, new product ideas, marketing campaigns, or other issues relating to your company? You could simply publish out a question to your connections on a social network of choice, but there are far more methodical ways to gather feedback – some free and others low-cost – that can be a valuable aid in your decision making...