Ever get the sneaking suspicion someone is talking about you (or your products)? An influx of social media sites and applications has turned the world wide web into a high school hallway – everyone’s talking, but you’re not privy to the details. What-ev-er.

That’s where Social Mention comes in. It’s a social media search engine that monitors conversations across multiple sources, including Google blog search, Twitter, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Digg, and YouTube. Results are aggregated and categorized by social media type – blogs, micro-blogs, comment sections, bookmarking services, news, and more.

Using and navigating the Social Mention search engine is second nature. That’s because it was built on Yahoo BOSS, the open search API we discussed in Move over Springsteen. Social Mention even throws in the most popular and au courant conversations in a “Hot Conversations” section, so you can see what’s really got the internet buzzing.

The reality is, you can’t sit in chat rooms or roam social sites all day, monitoring your brand’s public perception. Even Google can’t return the real-time results you need to keep your finger on the pulse. It takes less than 5 seconds to search for your product or company on Social Mention and see what all the gossip is about.

Getting into the C-suite usually requires an invitation. Or maybe buying an expensive ad in a business magazine.

Now you can target decision makers by company size, job function, industry, and more by using LinkedIn DirectAds. If you don’t know, LinkedIn is the premier professional social network, with over 25 million users, who use the network daily to build business contacts and industry presence. LinkedIn has opened its doors to advertisers, provided they are a member of the LinkedIn community. While anyone can join (and it’s free), potential advertisers must have a legitimate profile and a minimum number of connections (the equivalent of friends). LinkedIn does this to protect the integrity of the network and keep spammers at bay.

At this time, LinkedIn only offers text display advertising, but the price is right and the location is unbeatable. Typically, ads go for $25 for a 30-day run, with minimal upcharges for increased impressions or audience targeting. Ads are placed on a CPM basis (no cost per click at this time). So if you want to specifically reach senior marketing executives or salespeople in a specific geography, you can for a few extra bucks. Ads appear above the fold on the member’s profile page or the LinkedIn homepage, displaying your text content, url, and a link to the advertiser’s LinkedIn profile.

Is your company hesitant to embrace social networking? Maybe you need a light version.

Such is the case with Livebar, the latest offering from white label, social networking solution, Liveworld. Livebar lets you run a “mini social network” on top of your existing website. Imagine the functionality of Facebook or Twitter – chat, forums, blog posts, short format messaging – but running in tandem with your website content – no redirects necessary.

Livebar hibernates on your site until a user activates it – appearing as a translucent box at the bottom of the screen. Check out the screenshots of Tulane University’s Livebar which will go live at the end of this month. Users can engage each other in conversation, “soapbox” (the equivalent of blog posts), or send out a “shout” (similar to Twitter tweets, maximum of 140 characters). Conversations are contextually-relevant to the page visitors are on – i.e. Livebar knows where you are and only serves up conversations about that page.

There is no pricey web design or development costs associated – Livebar runs on a single line of JavaScript and can be deployed within minutes. So if you aren’t ready to jump into the deep end, investing in a small-scale social networking app like Livebar is an easy way to create a community experience for your company or brand.

Sometimes the standard car colors just won’t work. That’s when you make the big decision to pimp your ride. Adding customization can also be a great way to build or advance your business.

If you want to customize or build a search service for your customers, check out Yahoo! Search BOSS (short for Build your own Search Service). It lets third-party developers build new search products by utilizing the Yahoo search API. Basically, the same technology that powers the 2nd most powerful search engine is at your disposal. Create a new search application or your own mashup using existing technologies (like Yahoo Search & Google Maps). You’re only limited by your creativity and the skills of your web team (or just let us know if you need help).

The latest BOSS release includes web, news, image search, and spelling suggestions from the Yahoo search engine, but you can index and integrate your own data, content, and technology in a custom solution. The BOSS API is open source (ergo, free) and unlike previous releases and competitors, it includes:

• Unlimited queries
• No restrictions on presentation
• Reordering
• Product co-branding (Yahoo search content + your proprietary content)

Building and launching your own search service is no easy feat and requires an understanding of programming languages (i.e. you really need to know what you are doing). If you’ve ever wanted to put your face or brand on a search service, this is an opportunity to put your hands on the technology that powers it.

We’re fans of free search tools, especially when the biggest search engine in the world offers their wealth of knowledge (and raw data) to us so willingly. We talked about Google Trends in Popularity Contest, and now there is Google Insights for Search.

Google Insights for Search is exactly what it sounds like. Google is giving the public a glimpse of Google search volume and patterns by specific term(s). Results can be filtered by category, region, or time frame, and as a bonus, Google throws in the top searches related to your term(s) and the “rising searches” (searches that have shown the most improvement by percentage). Just about anything is fair game, provided the search term is popular enough for inclusion.

Let say I want to chart the popularity of Web 2.0 technologies for direction in future feed growth! articles. Specifically, I want to see how well “RSS” feeds are doing when compared to “widgets“. Insights graphs search results for both terms and provides headline suggestions (popular new stories) that correspond with search volume spikes. I can see that there is a dominant interest in RSS in Japan, and that “Google Reader” is enjoying a 920% rise in search popularity.

Insights is a public offering (and quite fun to play with), but Google is no fool. This is a tool aimed at marketers and advertisers. Search patterns drive many marketing decisions, from the the language used to describe a product or service to the time of year it’s released. All the information provided by Insights for Search can be used in your personal paid search strategy. The top related searches and rising searches may provide new direction in an already saturated market.