Marketers may feel as though they are drowning in data and metrics when monitoring social media with its complexity of platforms and opinions.

Air dates: Thursday, September 12, 2013, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, September 15, 2013, 7:30 a.m. Twitter, Facebook, discussion blogs, review sites – consumers are out there talking about businesses and products, and those business should be paying attention. How can marketers monitor these online conversations use it to their advantage?

Bill Rand, assistant professor of marketing and director of the Center for Complexity in Business at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business comments on social media’s effect on the gun control debate that has been revived by the recent mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.:

"It's unclear whether presence in social media and the traffic that companies get through social media are actually doing well in the storefront," the researchers explain.

Social tags are the keywords that users create as they discuss or categorize topics on social media. And they can offer valuable insights into consumers’ perceptions of products and brands.