Listening on the social web is like being the higher power of your brand. Even as a mere human being, Google brings the world to your fingertips, even if you want something like Disney thimbles.

Now, if you were a newbie and wanted to search the web to see what people are saying about you, your company, your interests, or your industry, you can start with Google.

But the web is always changing.

And here is where the omniscience comes in. Using tools on the internet, you can constantly keep tabs on what's being said on the Internet about you.

People are putting new content up and saying new things all the time. So Google made Google Alerts and Google Reader.

Google Alerts allows you to get an email with all the new content on the internet about any search term you want to keep tabs on.

Google Reader gives you one place to gather constantly updated content from blog sites, news sites, and even comments.

Another way to search is Technorati Blog Search, giving you a way to search for blogs that are talking about whatever you might be interested in.

But what about forums? and people's comments and beyond? I found this list at Marketing Pilgrim of 8 free tools you can use that I haven't mentioned here.

Also, one paid service that I keep hearing about is Radian6 that can help you do this as well. I wouldn't have mentioned it, since I just gave access to all these free tools but judging from the CEO's twitter, their customer response looks awesome. Check it out for yourself!