Well, chances are you've caught wind of the buzz around 'Web 2.0' but are still wondering how to make it work for you.

Social media are the online tools and platforms that people (read customers) are using to share good and bad experiences, opinions, ideas, thoughts - or any content for that matter - in the form of text, audio, images and video that is not broadcast or published via traditional media (print, television, radio). Some examples of these media are blogs, wikis, podcasts, videocasts, social book marking sites, social networking sites and forums.

The emergence of these new tools has changed the way the World Wide Web works. No longer is the content on the Web determined by those who have the technical expertise to build a website, or the financial resource to pay someone to build a website. Thanks to social media, which has democratized the Web as a publishing platform, consumers have become prosumers - simultaneous consumers and producers of content - who build digital portfolios around their personal brands on sites like Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and others.

This tipping point in technological innovation, and the impact it is having on connected human beings, is both an unprecedented opportunity and enormous challenge to companies and brands around the world.

Never before have consumers had the ability to spread messages (good or bad) and impact brands as profoundly as they have in the last few years, thanks to the viral and hyper linked nature of the Internet.

In this new era - this Relationship Economy - how will you respond?