Listening+Experiment+Tips

=**1. Get Your Organization Ready**=

You'll need to figure out an internal process to do your listening. Who will do the nitty gritty work? Will other people respond? If you're working an intern, will they empowered to respond to comments? How will you share the information with other people on staff??

Beth Kanter, [|Examples of How Listening Returns Value for Nonprofit Organizations] Beth Kanter, [|Getting Your Nonprofit Ready To Listen] Dave Fleet, [|25 Questions To Make Your Social Media Work Flow More Efficient]

=**2. Use your RSS Reader like a Rock Star**=

Using an RSS Reader will make your listening work efficient and not clutter up your email. Here are a few popular readers:
 * [|Bloglines]
 * [|Google Reader]
 * [|Netvibes]

You'll be creating a listening "dashboard" in your reader. Here's how Carie Lewis of the Humane Society uses [|Igoogle as her dashboard] Here's [|some simple steps] for setting this up


 * Good RSS Habits**
 * Set up aside a small block of time to read your feeds everyday
 * Clean house often, RSS subscriptions tend to pile up
 * Don't feel like you have to read every post on every blog, use the "Mark Read" option

[|Sink or Swim, Managing RSS Feeds] with Better Groups by 43 folders [|NpTech 101: How I read 2,000 Articles in 30 Days] by Chas Grundy [|Wrangling your RSS Feeds] by Amy Sample Ward

=**3. Brainstorm Keywords**=

The basic keywords you'll want to monitor are:
 * 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 that illustrate need

Get creative! Involve other people in your organization.

Here's a few tools to help: [|Google Ads Keyword Tool] [|Most Frequently Mispelled Search Terms] [|Tips for Expanding Keyword Lists]

Beth Kanter, [|Listening Literacy Skills] Ashkan, [|Keyword Research 101]

=4. Set Up Your Listening Dashboard=

The time consuming part of this process is the set up. Once you've set it up, it will take you a few hours a week to listen and respond, depending on volume.


 * Process**
 * Do search at site for the first time
 * Add a RSS feed to your reader
 * Monitor in your reader, engage when needed


 * Tools**
 * [|Google Alerts]
 * [|Social Mention]
 * [|Twitter Search]
 * [|BoardReader]
 * [|BackType]

If you want to explore other free monitoring tools, here's a mega list.

[|Top Ten Free Monitoring Tools] by Dan Schawbel [|How To Set Up A Listening Post] on Twitter by Beth Kanter [|Examples of Keyword Searches] by Frank Barry

You'll want to identify and follow key bloggers in your nonprofit space, especially if you are planning to blog or doing any blogger relations program.


 * Define Your Niche
 * Find Bridge bloggers [|alltop.com]
 * Add them to your RSS Reader

Finding Bridge Bloggers by Beth Kanter [|A Poor Man's Guide To Finding the Influencers] by Mike Nelson

You can monitor social networks and YouTube for mentions of your organization and issue. It is important to do this type of listening as a prelude to setting up your own profile or placing videos on YouTube - and as an going part of your social media strategy.


 * Social networks
 * YouTube

[|How to Listen on Social Networks] by KD Paine [|How to Listen on YouTube] by KD Paine Social Media Listening Wiki by Beth Kanter

=5. Conduct Start Listening and Refine=

Your initial listening might seem overwhelming, but you should be able to quickly hone in on these tasks after 2-3 weeks:


 * Identify the dozen or so best keywords or phrases to monitor related to your marketing and communications objectives
 * Summarize where conversations are occurring and the main topics that are resonating within targeted communities related to your marketing objectives
 * Develop a list of 15-20 thought leaders discussing key issues/topics related to your marketing or communications objectives

=6. The Art of Responding= = = What if no one is talking about your organization? That means it is time to start engaging. Once you have a policy around who will respond, you will get down to commenting and engaging in conversation. Here are some tips.

[|The Five Stages of Listening] from Dave Fleet [|The Art of Commenting] by Beth Kanter [|How to Comment like a Queen] by Vicky Davis [|How To Handle Negative Comments on Your Blog] by Jason Alba [|How to Handle Negative Word of Mouth] by Andy Sernowitz

=**7. Actionable Listening Reporting, Pattern Analysis and Seeing Trends Over Time**=



[|listening report template.pdf] - Use this listening report template to help you analyze, synthesize, and apply what you hear.

You'll want to be look for patterns and trends. This requires stepping back. Your tools are social bookmarking and the excel spreadsheet.

Using Delicious to Bookmark mentions

WeAreMedia Tool Box: [|Social Bookmarking] [|Using Numbers To Harvest Insights] by Beth Kanter [|Visualizing Data to Trigger Insights] by Beth Kanter [|Share of Voice Report]

With your system in place, you're may be ready for professional listening tools.


 * [|Listening in a Blizzard] by Beth Kanter
 * [|Top 10 Reputation Tools Worth Paying] For by Dan Schwabel, Mashable