Active Social Media Listening: Inside Your Nonprofit Organization

Flickr Photo by PaulGi

Last year, I was in a room at the BlogHer Conference where there was a discussion about how we might focus BlogHers Act Campaign on maternal health. There were many different ideas expressed.    After about 45 minutes of discussion, I remember Liza Sabater made a few point, telling a story first that helped bring everyone to agreement.   Later I asked her, why did that happen?

Liza shared a secret.   She listens for what wasn't already said.

Yesterday, Liz Strauss, riffing on an excellent post by Chris Brogan about listening tools, makes just that point. "Just as when we write we have to know what we want to say. We have to know what we’re listening for . . . we’re listening for what people aren’t saying, but want to." and goes to give us some points about what to listen for ...

I also think it is about actionable listening.  What are you going to do with the information once you hear it? What will you change?  What will you make better?  Here's some "listening questions" to ask yourself.

State your objective and audience

What do you need to listen for?

• How do your supporters (and potential supporters) view your organization? Is it positive or negative?
• What are they saying about your organization?
• What do they think about your issue area?
• What do they like or dislike about your program or service?
• How are their preferences changing?
• How are technologies and social trends impacting your supporters?
• What ideas might they offer for new services or marketing/fundraising campaigns?
• How is the conversation around your organization, issue area, or program changing?
• Who are the influential voices in the social media space covering your issue area or topical domain?

List Five Ways You Plan To Use the Information

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Internal Process

• Who in the organization will do the listening?
• How will you share the information?
• Not everyone has to do the deep dive or heavy lifting, how will you organize your team effort?
• How will you share the results of what you heard?

Social Listening Literacy Skills

• Are you currently using RSS Reader? If so, what reader? How many feeds?
• Are you currently on Twitter?
• How will you make listening tools a habit?

So, how do you make listening a part of your social media work?  What are you listening for and how have you made it actionable?

Comments

[Beth Dunn]

I love this, Beth, because it focuses on how important it is to plan for what happens *after* you get information -- what are you gonna do about/with it? Who? How? To what end? Involving people from across the organization in a listening campaign, and integrating it into the org's regular life, is key to long-term success.