I’ve been running around lately at a bunch of conferences and meetings and such, and I’m starting to recognize a bit of a pattern.

One question that comes up a lot around listening and community engagement is what, exactly, you do with the information you find in social media when you get out there. Listening tends to overwhelm folks because aggregating all that stuff – brand conversations, industry conversations, competitor chatter – is big work.

And sometimes, I think the fear behind listening starts with not really wanting to hear what’s being said in the first place.

You Have To Want It

There’s a wealth of information out there in social media. There truly is. Vast swaths of information about what people think and feel. Sometimes it’s about your brand. Sometimes it isn’t. Both have value.

But the hardest bit is that if you’re going to listen, you have to want to hear. That means it’s not enough to say okay great, we listened. Here’s all the stuff. They said or didn’t say this. It was good. It was bad. It was ugly.

If you stop there – if you just put all that information in a file and think you’re educated, you’ve only gotten halfway to the finish line.

It’s About What You Do With It

Sometimes listening is hard. It opens up the door to things that you might not have wanted to hear. It points to weaknesses or shortcomings. It can also open your eyes to huge opportunities to embrace positive momentum, learn from successes, and understand what your community and customer base is asking of you.

But you have to approach listening with this mindset: We are listening so that we can better inform our future decisions, and take action based on what we learn.

(In fact, I’m thinking we should develop the Listening Pledge or something. On my honor, I will try… oh, nevermind.)

Sometimes that action is changing something. Sometimes it’s staying the course and doing more of what you’re doing. Sometimes it’s just taking intelligence into consideration for future decisions or strategies. But it’s always about keeping an open mind and taking what you hear as an opportunity to be better at what you do.

Listening is Knowledge

Stop fearing the negative. Stop worrying that you’re going to hear something you don’t like. Why? It’s being said anyway. I’ve said it before: social media didn’t create criticism. It just made it easier to hear. And for heaven’s sake, if someone is unhappy with you and that’s preventing them from buying something, sticking around, or telling other people nice things about you, why wouldn’t you want to know, and do something about it?

Listening passively isn’t enough. It’s a start, but you gotta want this. You have to approach this critical first – and continuous – step in social media with the attitude that you don’t always know everything, and that you can learn a lot based on what you hear.

So that’s my bit for the day. I’m going to keep trying to help folks listen with the right mindset. How about you?

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