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Listening

Dear Gurus: Let’s Talk Less and Listen More

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Dear Gurus: It’s Time to Talk Less and Listen More
By Hadji Williams

It’s been about three weeks since Keith Elam, one of the most accomplished artists of my generation passed away.

As one-half of Gang Starr, Elam was truly a Gifted emcee who pioneered an ill poetic street corner philosopher’s eloquence not yet heard prior. Between his Gang Starr catalog and his groundbreaking Jazzmatazz work, he proved to source of seemingly Unlimited Rhymes. And his willingness to discuss everything from the writing process to manhood to parenthood to politics to crime made his lyrics truly Universal.

Looking back, April 19, 2010 saw the passing of perhaps the only non-east Indian who could rightfully call himself a guru with a straight face. Elam’s death also got me thinking about all the other so-called gurus out here…

A while back I met a guy who’d penned the definitive book on Twitter. I know it was the definitive book on Twitter because he said so. And so had his publisher. Now the guy admitted to never having worked for Twitter. To my knowledge he didn’t even know anyone who did. He hadn’t even been using Twitter very long himself. But no matter.

He had a book, a title, and full schedule of speaking gigs and media appearances to validate his self-inflicted gurudom.

Now, the easiest thing would be to insult, slander folks like this. That’d be the one-off sureshot that would garner plenty of RTs, comments, and e-daps. But instead, I wanna try something different, beginning with a question:

What if all the gurus, particularly those of us in marketing, PR and social media, just said—out loud:

“I don’t know.”

Continue Reading

Dear Gurus: Let's Talk Less and Listen More

Author:

Dear Gurus: It’s Time to Talk Less and Listen More
By Hadji Williams

It’s been about three weeks since Keith Elam, one of the most accomplished artists of my generation passed away.

As one-half of Gang Starr, Elam was truly a Gifted emcee who pioneered an ill poetic street corner philosopher’s eloquence not yet heard prior. Between his Gang Starr catalog and his groundbreaking Jazzmatazz work, he proved to source of seemingly Unlimited Rhymes. And his willingness to discuss everything from the writing process to manhood to parenthood to politics to crime made his lyrics truly Universal.

Looking back, April 19, 2010 saw the passing of perhaps the only non-east Indian who could rightfully call himself a guru with a straight face. Elam’s death also got me thinking about all the other so-called gurus out here…

A while back I met a guy who’d penned the definitive book on Twitter. I know it was the definitive book on Twitter because he said so. And so had his publisher. Now the guy admitted to never having worked for Twitter. To my knowledge he didn’t even know anyone who did. He hadn’t even been using Twitter very long himself. But no matter.

He had a book, a title, and full schedule of speaking gigs and media appearances to validate his self-inflicted gurudom.

Now, the easiest thing would be to insult, slander folks like this. That’d be the one-off sureshot that would garner plenty of RTs, comments, and e-daps. But instead, I wanna try something different, beginning with a question:

What if all the gurus, particularly those of us in marketing, PR and social media, just said—out loud:

“I don’t know.”

Continue Reading

Listening To Yourself

Author:

I called 2009 the year of listening. Many reputation monitoring products made their hay in 2009 including Radian6, TechRigy, Flitrbox, and others.  They all have listening in common.  Being able to hear what is being said about you and your brand online is an important part of your listening campaign.  Not only should you be listening to your customers, your potential customers, and even your competition, you need to listen to yourself.

Before you begin to think I am being a little schizophrenic in that statement, I am referring to larger organizations that a party of one.  If you are a single or soloprenuer, you obviously have a good handle on what you say about your own brand.  If you are a large organization are you listening to what is being said about your own community or employees?

Many employees are in the world of social media now and they are all part of the larger social networks. Facebook and Twitter, and blogs are being used by many of the people out there and this is all accessible by their friends, family and online acquaintances.  Those groups are are potential customers of your company and therefore you need to also monitor that reputation and be a part of those conversations.  I am not talking about stalking your employees. I am speaking about listening to how they talk about you and your brand online.  They need to be corrected when they make mistakes and they also need to be noticed when they are evangelizing your brand so you can thank them accordingly.  What better way to make them more of an evangelist than to thank them for helping you build a good reputation online?  I have often said that every employee must be a brand evangelist of the company they work for.  We are all social media managers of the company we work for.

I was inspired to write this post after reading a post by Melissa Galt. Melissa talks about 3 rules of social media and how knowing these can help you win the social media game.  Her point that caught my attention was:

#2 Monitor the conversation and correct misstatements.

You have a responsibility to maintain awareness of what is being said particularly by those who work for you and correct any misstatements that they make.

This is a great point that she made and different from what others are preaching about listening. I hear the social media pundits all talk about monitoring your brand from the outside but Melissa makes a great point about listening to yourself.

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