You’re thinking about lunch. There, we guessed it. We’re mind readers. We’re amazing. We know. Ok, we’re not really mind readers—you’re probably not thinking about lunch. But then again, maybe you are? After all, it’s nearing the lunch hour, your stomach is grumbling, and your brainpower is diminishing—so if anything, it’s a pretty good guess. While we wish we could know what people were thinking, especially when it comes to consumers, if we can’t read minds, we can at least read between the lines.

With so many social media sites and the users who share their lives on them, we are not too far from getting a really good idea of what people want. With a few handy social media monitoring tools, a little bit of strategic thinking, and some deductive reasoning, we can pretty accurately determine what our customers want. Through social media listening and targeted online information gathering, we become clairvoyant content curators. And since we’re not selfish with our powers, we will teach you our ways.

Content curation involves sorting through the immeasurable array of content on the web, picking out the good stuff, and then presenting it or utilizing that information in an effective, tactical way. Think of it like picking fruit. There are many orchards, with thousands of trees, and countless pieces of fruit—but we’re only interested in picking the best. We’ll take all the exceptional apples out there, organize them strategically into a bushel, and then turn them over to the masses for delicious consumption. It’s the same process for curating content. So how do we know which apples to pick, which orchards to visit, and even which minds to try and read? Allow us to enlighten you.

As a company, it is important to monitor the web to figure out what consumers and businesses are thinking in order to gain valuable market intelligence. This involves gathering information from posts, articles, blogs, comments, etc. from across every nook and cranny of the web. To do so, it is necessary to use several tools to conduct searches for carefully selected category keywords and specific competitors. However, A LOT of filtering is still involved. I mean, in order to get to the bottom of what people are really thinking, you’ve got to go a few levels deep, right? And in order to pick the best apples, you’ve got to climb a lot of trees.

Yet, the telepathy doesn’t stop there. As online activity monitors (as we’ve hereby dubbed you), one of the most important things you need to look for is mention of the company itself. You want to know what consumers are saying (which denotes what they are thinking) about your company and products, right? Of course you do. This is one of the key ways you can gage the success of your brand online. In addition, you will want to watch out for any problems or complaints from consumers. It is important to resolve any negative issues to feel confident that the brand is being seen positively, especially since these comments will be broadcast to all of their friends and followers.

While you can’t read minds to know which kind of apples people like—Red Delicious, Granny Smith, Fuji—you can determine through online monitoring a healthy variety of the best. This variety consists of the most important company mentions, competitor references, and key industry topics. These online comments and information, once combined and reported on, serve as the basis to know what consumers are thinking. This knowledge can allow you to formulate an organic action plan for your company. Social media strategies, campaigns, blog posts, and other forms of thought-leading content (that the consumer actually wants) can then be produced based on trending topics relating to your industry. Sure, you might get a few bad apples in the bunch, and sometimes there are slim pickings, but consistent online monitoring is key to your brand’s success.

So we can probably guess what you’re thinking now—you need to start monitoring social media and curating content. See, we told you—mind readers.