Listening
Listening is the critical start of an effective social media plan.
Whether you’re a big brand or a solo blogger gathering up the conversation about your work helps develop perspective, adjust perceptions, and make plans to serve the people who love what you do. Listening has been called the new marketing. We’re learning to sort through the chatter for:
- people who are talking
- volume and location of conversations
- tone and sentiment — content and context
- advice, complaints, ideas
- direction, timing, and growth
We’re learning to sort to the relevant:
- tracking keywords
- setting blog alerts
- connecting on social networks, reading about people, and getting updates from them
- following and searching influencers who share interests
- using cross-platform aggregators, social news centers, and comment trackers
- asking questions via surveys, via Twitter, via social networks, via our blogs
Congratulations. People are talking about you and your industry so much that you need a more robust tool for making sense of it all. Several good monitoring services can help, including Radian6 and Nielson’s BuzzMetrics. –NTEN, Got Your Ears On? How to Listen to Your Audience Using Social Media
We’re even beginning sort the signal from the noise to see:
- the positive and negative
- the patterns and trends
- the random and the regular
The information we gather can be overwhelming and contradictory. How we decide when it should move us to change what we do?
Who’s Worth Listening to?
People online are talking all of the time. Sometimes what we say is influenced by the moment or by the group. Sometimes our opinions are uninformed, missing bits of the big picture, bits that would change what we thought or what we would suggest someone might do.
Beyond all that it’s important to remember that we’re a self-sorted group. Everyone online has access to a computer and is literate. Not everyone who has an opinion offers it. Some who offer their opinion have agendas other than helping us improve. And those opinions and the wisdom we offer can fall woefully short of the depth of our feelings. Those opinions and that wisdom also can be far from what we’d actually do.
Even when we listen in the best of faith, we’re still we’re likely to be confused by whom to listen to.
How do you know when a complaint is worth changing a feature or strategy?
Do you listen to the critics?
Do you listen to the fans?
Do you listen to the people who don’t care all that much about you?
Do you try to get the folks who usually don’t talk to weigh in with an opinion?
Seth was brilliant on just this point this weekend.
… the critics won’t be placated. Changing your act to make them happy is a fool’s game.
Here’s a surprising thought, though. You should ignore your fans as well.
Seth suggests that the most important feedback comes from the folks who thrive on sharing what you do. Those “sneezers” are the people who will help you grow.
How do you recognize your “sneezers.” How do you listen for the folks who thrive when you do?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
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Register for SOBCon09 NOW!! Listen to the Sneezers!
Good Morning Liz.
One of the most important things I have learned since working with Chris, and am learning from you and so many others, is that you never really can ignore anyone. It’s really important to listen to everyone – sure there are lots to listen to but, given time, and attention, you will be able to sort out who is who. Never discount anyone because they’ve never commented on your blog, or work in the same field or talk about the things you do on any given social platform.
Recognition comes with engagement, conversation – a give and take. And listen – always be listening.
Thank you for this.
The last quip from Seth really hits home. Coming from a fine arts background, the 1st thing I learned is that thick skin is a necessity.
The critics are everywhere and they will never like what you do. The greatest gift they provide is the challenge to keep your personal standards high and persevere with your own vision.
Your fans will massage your ego, but in the end this is not productive when it comes to creativity and insight.
The fine of listening is in between these two spaces.
If we need to find “sneezers” then maybe we should simply think about what a sneeze is – a sudden burst of energy. Loud, short, somewhat obtrusive but always forgiven; followed by a response like, bless you. This is also usually followed by another response like, thank you.
That is about a 5 second window.. not a lot of time, but “sneezers” are
hard to miss.
Hi Kathryn,
I’m so with what you’re saying. I listen one at a time, but I don’t necessarily act. 🙂
I think Seth’s point is right. The people who are critics and fans only offer a limited point of view. I want depth in my responses.
Listening is a generous act in itself. Acting is a responsibility. 🙂
Dave,
Sneezers are to miss when we’re looking and listening for them. Yeah. That’s the part where we can make our misstep, getting all wrapped up and losing sight of how they help.
I think your comment is brilliant!!
I liked this post, Liz. It gave me a lot to think about.
One of the thoughts I had was about the difference between a critic and a critique.
A critic is like the two old men on the Muppet Show. They sit up in the balcony far removed from the performance and make snide comments about the performers and the performances. Sometimes funny, sometimes silly, always nasty. These are the guys you need to ignore.
A critique, on the other hand could be given to you by someone who genuinely wants to help improve thigs. It attempts to see thing in context and apply wisdom to whatever comments are made. The goal is always improvement. These we *do* need to listen to and consider. We might end up disagreeing, but the feedback is always valuable.
What do you think?
Hi David,
I like the way you differentiate the terms critic and critque. I think, like you do, that anything that makes us stop to consider what we’re doing and why is probably a good thing.
Some of my best friends are the best at giving a great critique. 🙂
To run with the “sneezer” theme – I’ve had some clients with TERRIBLE allergies in my practice. I’ve discovered that I can’t make my services “hypo- allergenic” but I can reduce the allergens.
I’ve had to change a LOT of things in my business because my preferences made my clients “sneeze”. (Online video is a prime example. I love it – my clients prefer printed PDF tutorials.)
In my practice, I watch what makes each client sneeze. When a I see a common allergen – I make a change. I can’t change for each sneeze – but when I see several sneezing at the same thing – then it’s time to make a change.
Yay! Thanks for this Liz. An article on Scobleizer http://tinyurl.com/d39zrw about why Facebook doesn’t listen, and why it shouldn’t bugged me because, as your above article indicates, much good advice on SoMe says that you should learn to “listen”.
I appreciate how you delineate when you should listen and not, but I think this would be somethnig to expand on even more because I think it is confusing to people getting into this. Listen or don’t listen? What should I do? When to listen? When not? What are the criteria?
In some ways, what a person needs is proper market research, and then to listen to your market research. That is how you listen to the people who are really liking and buying your stuff. And you need to listen to what the boundaries are that turns people away as well, because sometimes a complaint is genuine and well founded.
It’s all such a balancing act and thanks for helping us sort it out.
Cheers! @marialavis
“The information we gather can be overwhelming and contradictory. How we decide when it should move us to change what we do?”
This is why it’s so important to watch trends and keep a long-term view of your goals instead of reacting to each thing that happens in itself.
I really think it’s important to listen and actually take the time to process and analyze the information you gather so you can see trends emerging for not only the people that are already your customers, but those that you’d like to eventually become your customers (their voices matter too).
And when do you change what you’re doing? When the chatter visibly affects things like buzz, sales, and customer retention. The criteria is different for every business, but spending time just observing can be incredibly valuable, indeed.
Ah, listening – my favorite subject!
Great question – who is worth listening to? For me, this question raises another question: What is the goal of listening?
Is it primarily informational (i.e. gather feedback) or is it also relational?
In relationships between friends, we typically see listening as an important part of building the relationship, not just gathering information.
A brand that thinks of “listening” mainly for research or information gathering is missing the most valuable opportunity – to build relationships (with customers, fans, sneezers, etc.).
This type of listening is not passive or unidirectional. It is two-way listening. Message reception is not enough; the listener must respond and relate.
This is the type of listening that *sends* a message: you are important to us.
Your last question – how do you recognize your sneezers? Imagine if a brand starts by simply taking the time to say ‘thank you’ to its “sneezers”, to let them know they are noticed & appreciated. Even the critics will become less critical when they really feel that they are being heard.
Thanks, Liz, for including that quote which mentions Radian6, by the way.
Regards,
Marcel
Nice post. Listening for the types of conversation you mentioned are important. But it is also important to make sure you are listening to a decent sample of those stakeholders who are important to your business. I blogged about this recently at http://traffichoney.com/marketing/what-to-listen-for-with-your-social-media-listening-strategy
I’d love to hear your thoughts about this.
Hi Sana!
A decent sample is good for breadth. Though I often worry that folks who listen wide sometimes don’t know how to filter and it’s the filtering that counts most when we listen to crowds talk. Your article says it well.