Listen before you start blogging

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When I talk to people about business blogging, the first thing I usually recommend they do before anything else is work on their listening.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not telling them to listen to me; I advise them to look at the tools they can use and information they can gather by listening to what’s being written on the web.

Listening Tools

I personally use NetNewswWire synched with Google Reader to follow a hotch-potch of blogs, news sites and google searchers.

A great listening tool

It’s the first port of call every day after I’ve checked and responded to my mail; I look at what’s important, thought-provoking, and what catches my interest.

I make sure I limit my time so the day doesn’t disappear, but I do allow myself to follow my curiosity. Part of being a communications consultant means keeping up to date with new trends in digital communication and that means reading books and reading on the web.

As a business owner I also monitor my brand, looking for mentions of “Jon Buscall” or “Jontus Media”. I want to be able to follow any conversations I’m involved in, react to what’s being published and generally keep an eye on what’s being written. If there’s something I need to respond to, I think about blogging it.

Listening, for example, is important if you want to use your blog for crisis management. For example, I discovered that one of my clients was being critiqued in a local Swedish newspaper. I discovered the link just seconds after the paper updated its site via my RSS reader and was able to advise my client to respond immediately on their corporate blog as they weren’t aware of the story.

Blogs are great ways of responding to a crisis. But you have to listen to what’s being said before you can write.
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