“God gave you two ears and only one mouth for a reason.”
I admit, I heard that more times than I would care to mention. But the truth behind the sentiment applies to Social Media (and the marketing thereof.) I’m willing to bet that more than 90% of the discussion about new media tools centers around the various means of pushing or publishing your message. In reality, the biggest value we derive comes from listening.
I have a friend who uses 18 different tools to monitor conversations in the blogworld alone. They range from simple Google News Alerts to arcane engines with names that probably will be forgotten. I won’t bore you with a list, because ultimately you are the one who has to decide at what level and depth you want to pay attention to the discussion.
Instead, I am going to shill for a great little tool that helps you stay on top of conversations in progress. (I mean “shill” strictly in the amateur sense. I get no money, and I don’t know the people behind it, so it’s a clean endorsement.) It’s called “Commentful,” available as a service from Blogflux.
Commentful works best in Firefox, where a plugin automates everything. Whenever I come across a comment stream I want to track, I just right-click on Add to Commentful. The url is added to my watchlist, and I get an alert at the bottom of the browser anytime there is an update in those comment streams. I tend to track all threads where I have left a comment, and even track a few where I don’t. The beauty (for me) is getting a heads-up within minutes of a new comment.
If you’re like me (a communicator with a deep crisis communications streak) you’ll see the value instantly. If not, you can still impress those in the conversation with your attention to detail and promptness to respond. Many times, it’s not just what you say, but when you say it.
