This post is as much of a reminder to myself as anyone else.
I’m preparing to wrap up a series of workshops on using social media for small business and I’m struck by how much time we have spent discussing these new tools for talking and very little time talking about listening.
As many others have said before, blogging, social networking, etc., are all forms of online conversations. It sounds silly to say, but listening is a big part of having a meaningful conversation. Duh, right?
When we are engaged in face to face conversations, how often do we really listen? It takes effort to really pay attention, to not be thinking about what we want to say next, what profound point we want to make.
It is even easier to do this (not listen) with online media. It’s easy to shout out to the masses. It isn’t as easy to tell that two of us are talking at the same time.
I don’t mean to get on a soapbox – I just think that it’s important to remember that while these new tools give us the ability to talk to more people than ever, they also give us the opportunity to listen to more people than ever.
This was totally by chance (or maybe subconsciously), but I was happy to notice that most of the work we have been putting in on developing a social media dashboard lately has been centered around listening. We integrated some “talking tools” at the very end.
So, self, remember to listen. Intent is more important than content, so listen, ask, and make sure you understand before spouting your mouth off.
