Vik Duggal talks about the improved methods of communicating in 2009. There is no need to yell and shout anymore to your customers, community, or audience. With the tools available to us now and moving forward it’s about conversations, listening and acting on the feedback you get.
stop shouting – how to communicate in 2009
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I find your enthusiasm in your videos always a delight! It’s it interesting how in the specific you talk about how we should find new ways to communicate throughout our daily live. Although think about it, if you we were to switch to services like Twitter, Plurk, or Rejaw it wouldn’t seem right.
Hi Vik:
You are always so generous with your information.
In reference to your video about communication, I think the number one tool is to observe. Observe others people, communities, customers, and then listen, just step back and listen, then we have knowledge and what is the knowledge we have gained. It’s called POWER. Look, Listen, and then we act or in this instance communicate. I find that this works not only in business but every day life. And that’s my observation.
Gwen Sutton
Stop shouting except on Rejaw of course!
Nice site Vic, hadn’t seen your videos before.
So we see how you feel about “shouting” but what think you about (carrying the metaphor onward) “whispering.” Dialogues are all well and good, but can you see a place where the dialogue is not a good thing? Example that pops into my head, and perhaps a bad one, is of an artist. Art is created because it’s something you want to express, in your way. How is a dialogue helpful to the artist? Why should that person want it?
Sorry, random thoughts before I’ve had coffee
SO, If I do want to send out a newsletter about what is happening for my company, how would you suggest that be best do that? Without shouting that is…..
First, you need to determine who are the people you want to energize. This SM (social media) space is all about energizing your audience or community. In this case I’m going to assume that you want to send a newsletter to your customer base. With that assumption I would ask you how many people this would consist of? For now, let’s say it’s about 100 people (for the sake of my example).
So the old-media approach is to send a hard copy newsletter, create a website, or newsletter and push out content. First off, nix the hardcopy (it’s bad for the environment, and not sustainable). And while this is great and you are able to broadcast your message, you have no way of determining what people think of the message, and most importantly you get no feedback on how to improve.
Like all things, start small. Find a subset of the 100 people that see your company as adding value, would love to see you do more, and get them to provide feedback.
So how would you do that? Well, you need to know what you’re trying to improve. What kind of feedback to you want? How will you engage your audience? Well, you said your newsletter will tell them about what your company is doing. Great! This means you have content.
Convert your newsletter into a company blog (text/audio/video). There are plenty of great tools out there: Wordpress, Thesis is a great theme for it. Take that subset of your customer base that will give you the feedback and begin to converse with them. Set up a Twitter account, start a Facebook or LinkedIn group. Debating between which tools to use? Use them ALL.
Start small. Don’t try to hit a homerun on the first go at it. Understand the space. Get involved and the answers will come to you..
I use a newsletter to get people to subscribe to my blog. I take a few articles from the past selection of posts, turn them into a newsletter and link back to related blog posts. This helps draw visitors to the website and increase my blog subscriptions. The blog is the key, and newsletters are often ignored. Like Vic says, use social sites like twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and get your blog posts linked to your status. Slowly, but surely the momentum builds. Get a good feed stats program and follow all the traffic to your blog and site.
Awesome topic Vik. I believe many people don’t realize how important it is to get constructive feedback on the content they are putting out there. You hit the issue dead on with the showing of the house ads and magazine, how DO YOU respond to that? As people said in many of the comments and including yours, connecting a newsletter to a blog and getting feedback pretty much in real-time is the way to go nowadays. I’m gonna have to start digging deep and getting more people on my blog site as well! Once I secure a job that is…
vik -
really appreciate that you sent me a link to your website and video. i get it, and thanks for all the info, the lessons, the technical inspirations and networking insights. i’ve got more set up work to do, but your quick link has already provided some direction i hadn’t previously considered. job well done!
Vik,
Thanks for your sage advice. I hope folks stand up and listen to what you are saying.
Cheers
George