Ari Herzog, of AriWriter, tagged me to participate in Mitch Joel’s Social Media Marketing Tip Meme, alongside David Bradley, Max Gladwell, Jacob Morgan and Gillian Swart, and to discuss my social media marketing best practice.
My first impulse was to write listen as that is one of the most important practices but there are other aspects of listening such as pause and reflect that are equally important.
Most social media interactions occur online so listening involves the written rather than the spoken word. This strips the communication from the visual cues and non-verbal communication that are part of face to face encounters. Unfortunately, this can lead to miscommunication. We have all read an email or a blog comment and become angered because we didn’t interpret the sarcasm or irony that would have been easily understood in a verbal conversation. I believe emoticons were developed to help reduce this problem.
