I wrote here about the secret to a great client relationship (hint: it’s about how you communicate). Now I want to talk about a related issue: understanding how your audience is listening.

For example:

• Have you ever had someone say, “Well, I tweeted about that”?
  Okay, but I didn’t see your random tweet at a random-to-me time in a sea of tweets from the 500+ people I’m following.

• Have you ever had someone tell you they posted the event to their LinkedIn Group?
  Great, except I get a weekly digest and your event was three days ago.

• Have you ever had multiple people send you Facebook notifications for the same event, even though you’re on the organization’s distribution list and so have obviously received at least one event invitation (and possibly signed up already)?
  Gee, now you’re spamming me.

Here’s the problem: When you do this, you’re making assumptions about my behavior and how I use various social media channels. Get it right, and we’re cool. Get it wrong, and your message is lost. You become irrelevant. Or worse, I unfollow, unlink, or unfriend you.

Whether you’re asking directly, monitoring online behavior, or accessing analytics, it’s important to understand how people consume information.

What strategies do you use to understand how your audience is listening?

Note: This post originally appeared on IABC’s Communication World blog.

Photo by cogdogblog (Flickr).

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

The challenge in any broad-based membership organization is to provide value to all your members. IABC traditionally does a great job of programming for mid-level communicators; less so for its senior-level members. To address this challenge, IABC/Washington some years ago founded a Senior Communicators Council to provide more targeted programs and a place where senior-level members could network with each other. Past programs have included “how being a communicator helped me be a better CEO” and “Walmart‘s diversity initiatives.”

But is the organization hitting the mark? The Senior Communicators Council kicked off its 2010 schedule yesterday with a program entitled simply: What Do Senior Communicators Want? My friend and colleague John Clemons surveyed 60 senior communicators in three large IABC chapters (Washington, Chicago, and Houston) on how well the association’s programming resonates with senior communicators. Of the 44 respondents, 61 percent had been in the profession 20 or more years; 30 percent had 15 or more years of experience.

Some key findings:

• A split on whether IABC’s International Conference is programming to senior-level attendees (48.7 percent said yes; 51.2 percent said no). An informal poll of participants at yesterday’s event trended toward a resounding NO.
• Top 2 categories of interest for programs: best practices (76.1 percent) and breaking news|topical (61.9 percent). “We want to hear real stories,” said Clemons, who suggested that people think about such topics as bringing in someone from the White House to talk about communicating around health care reform or the spokesperson for USAIR to talk about communicating around a a crisis.
• A split on whether people would pay extra to join an IABC program specifically for senior communicators (i.e., something akin to IABC/Washington’s SCC). While 51 percent say yes, 49 percent said no. As one person yesterday put it, “My dues should already pay for that.” Another pointed out that the difference in responses might be due to location; in Washington, there are a lot of other resources and opportunities.
• Top 2 specific program suggestions: social media and crisis communications. This was followed by staff management and development, and case studies linked to ROI. Attendees at yesterday’s meeting also expressed a real hunger to tap into our collective wisdom and learn from each other, such as perhaps holding moderate discussions around a key topic. (My suggestion: corporate blogging and personal brands, especially in light of Forrester‘s decision to ban its employees from maintaining personal blogs.)

Wrapping up his findings, Clemons said that senior communicators want face-to-face meetings and programming that goes beyond how-to sessions, and that IABC and its chapters have an opportunity to better meet the needs of its more seasoned members–as long as no ones ask us to pay more. [Note: IABC/Washington charges for SCC meetings; but there is no separate fee to join the special interest group (i.e., it is a benefit of membership).]

If you’re a senior-level communicator, do these findings gel with what you want? If not, what would you add?

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

Have you tried to send a personalized LinkedIn invitation lately?

I’m a big believer in personalizing my invitations for several reasons:

• I’m inviting one person to join my network, not sending out a mass mailing.
• It’s a valuable way to follow-up with someone and tell them why they matter to you.
• Not doing so is lazy and impersonal–and leaves me concluding that maybe the person is all about numbers, not people.

Now LinkedIn seems to be stripping the personalization potential, at least where invites are concerned. Recently, I’ve run up against a 200-character limit. It takes 86 characters (including the spaces) just to send the standard message to a person with a four-letter name. That doesn’t leave much room to say more, unless you start abbreviating like crazy–and then you might as well send a tweet.

My short-term solution has been to send two e-mails: a follow-up from my account, and then a LinkedIn invite. While I’m sure people are loving all this attention, it seems a bit redundant not to be able to do it all in one.

Have you come across this problem? If so, what’s your workaround?

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.

Why do people keep asking, “how do you find the time to…” [fill in the blank]? Lately, the question’s been in relation to social media, but I’ve heard it in a lot of business contexts over the years.

I don’t have a time turner, so I haven’t figured out yet how to be in two places at once.

News flash — I don’t find the time, I make the time. It’s all about prioritizing. Family and friends, client work, business development, networking, learning, and so forth. I can’t tell you how to organize the 24 hours in your day, but I can tell you there’s no magic formula.

So next time someone asks you how you find the time, remind them it’s all about setting priorities.

Photo by TCM Hitchhiker (Flickr).

©2010 Independent Thinking. All Rights Reserved.