choose your own expert: listening

Listening

WeAreMedia Webinar: September 23, 2009

Your Session Leaders: Beth Kanter and Wendy Harman

Topics

• Case Study: Red Cross

• The Six Steps

• Questions/Reflections

This is a Remix of a Remix

http://www.wearemedia.org/Listening+and+Engaging

Listening in an connected world …

::assumptions

There are people out there who are interested in your issues or

organization’s programs.

(whether we know them or not)

“It is important to connect with people based on their interests (I will sometimes search twitter for "kids outside" and then compliment them on giving their kids a green hour!) ”

Danielle Brigida

Those people are active in our communities or organizations.

(whether we help them or not)

Source: Nina Simonhttp://museumtwo.blogspot.com

We want to engage those interested and active people in our work.

(whether we agree with them or not)

That’s the heart of social media success …

Engaging with interested and active people to take action.

The Red Cross Case Study: Listening Comes First

• First foray into social media was a listening project in 2006

• People were talking and they needed to listen

• At first, felt like going to war, but changed internal perception of social media

Listen: Monitor, Compile, Distribute, Reflect

I took an American Red Cross class I thought was less than satisfactory. […] The local chapter director. called me to talk about it honestly. They care about me and they’re willing to go the extra mile. I am now significantly more likely to take another class than I was before.” - Blogger

Look for Trends Over Time

Very important

step!

Relationship building

Customer service issue

Influencer complaining …

Staff determines comments or tweets that need response

Listening doesn’t have to stay in the communications department – becoming a listening organization leverage more dramatic results

What’s in Wendy’s Tool Box?

• What can professional tools do that free ones can’t?

• Start with free tools, perfect your radar, look for ways that professional tools can save you time

• Growing number of vendors, do your due diligence

• Demo

• Changes internal perception of social media value

• Improves relationships with audience and identifies influencers

• Incremental improvements for campaigns

• Working with affiliates

Listen: What’s the Value?

::the six steps1.Get your organization ready2.Use your RSS Reader like a Rock

Star3.Brainstorm Keywords4.Set up your listening dashboard5.Make listening and engaging a

practice an ongoing process6.Build in time for reflection

1. Get your organization ready to listen

How will you organize listening?

•Who will do the listening and responding?•Response policy?•How much time will you allocate? •How will you analyze the results and share insights? •How will you know if listening has be useful?

2. Use Your RSS Reader Like A Rock Star!

Which one is right for you?

Small block of time for daily reading

Clean house, reorganize

Don’t feel obligated to read everything

Good RSS Habits

• Nonprofit Name • Other nonprofit names in your space • Program, services, and event names • CEO or well-known personalities associated with your organization • Other nonprofits with similar program names • Your brand or tagline • URLs for your blog, web site, online community • Industry terms or other phrases • Issue area, synonyms, geography• Your known strengths and weaknesses.

3. Brainstorm Keywords

Try to avoid generic terms.  If your organization's name or program names contain generic words, use Boolean operators like "AND" or "NOT."

What NOT to search for?

Think Offline, Involve Other People in Your Organization

List Your Key Words/Phrases

Why Important Brainstorm Related Words

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Use Online Keyword Tools

4. Set up Your Feeds and Add To Your Reader or Dashboard

Ego Searches Basics

Persistent Searches Key words/phrases

Influencer Bloggers Blog Feeds

Other Where else is does your audience hang out?

What

Where

Don’t Panic!!

5. Make Listening and Engaging a Practice

Just Starting: Lurk for the first 30 days

Start with a small, select number of feeds

Review feeds as part of your routine

Open interesting links in new tabs

Read and follow interesting links in comments

Subscribe to new feeds

Revise keywords as you go

Identify mission critical keywords

Share a summary weekly w/others

Establish Good Habits

Example: Finding Influencer Bloggers

Look for bridge bloggers

Add them to your reader

• Slow growth at first, spider out

• Don’t be afraid to clean, unsubscribe, and reorganize

• Check out Google Page Rank

• You can check out their monthly views

• You can check out their technorati ranking

Building Your Feeds and Finding Influencer Bloggers

Source: Kd Paine – Buy her book, read her blog

Start engaging

Not Problem

If you find people talking about you ….

Keep track of themesKeep track of positivesEngageLook for stories to repurpose

Respond like a queen

Add value to the conversation

Don’t be afraid to disagree

Keep to the point of the topic

Point to relevant sources if you have more information

Watch the conversation develop

Humor works

Avoid big brother

Problem

If you find people talking about you ….

Big ProblemLittle Problem

Track themesBe prepared to engage

Be prepared to act swiftly

Listening for Tone, Volume, and Sentiment

Swing into crisis mode and call in the boss

6. Regular Time for Reflection

Are the topics of conversation changing?

Is the tone, sentiment, or volume changing?

Where are the most interesting conversations taking place?

What does this mean for your strategy or programs? How can you use the information to improve what your are doing?

Is there great content (stories) that you can repurpose elsewhere?

Questions? Reflections?

::the six steps1.Get your organization ready2.Use your RSS Reader like a Rock

Star3.Brainstorm Keywords4.Set up your listening dashboard5.Make listening and engaging a

practice an ongoing process6.Build in time for reflection

Thank You

Slides and links at: http://www.wearemedia.org

Ending Plenary Session

• Call this number:

• Be prepared to share one thing you learned

Ten Minute Break

12:10-12:20 am PST

3:10- 3:20 pm EST