I received an email today that challenged a remark I made during a meeting. The question asked about the importance of listening and asked for tips/thoughts/advice. This made me think, what makes us good listeners and how can we become better listeners in-order to engage with our audiences.

Here are some thoughts that I used in response to my friend!

1. To know your audience, to effectively communicate…we must listen so that we may adjust/address our discourse.
2. To listen, we must ask. We must be willing to empower our audience and engage their conversation. So we ask questions to learn about our audience.
3. We are observant, we look at our surroundings where we communicate so that the visual cues provide context to the conversation.
4. We find a connection point. People exchange in conversation because of some common ground. We look for these commonalities and use them to form reflective conversation.
5. We bite our tongues. When we listen, we do not try to complete others’ sentences but provide simple gestures so that the audience feels us engaged.
6. We provide emotional reinforcement. It is okay to laugh, cry, and even get mad during a conversation. Emotion is the result of a successful conversation.
7. We make our audience feel important, we make them feel like they are the thought leader. This requires us to do a little homework and understand who will engage in conversation; so that we can be prepared with questions about that person so we can make them feel important.
8. We create a silence so that the audience feels the need to fill the void. Sometimes we ask questions or even prompt discussions, but we are not willing to let the person answer. Create a silence in the discussion that provides a rigid opportunity for the audience to feel the need to remove the silence.
9. Most importantly, be genuine and honest with the ones you are communicating. Honesty provides connection and builds credibility.
10. Lastly, tell stories, good stories. People connect with stories, rich stories with layers. When you tell a story, people want to share their stories. Then just sit back, listen and enjoy the moment.

Listening is one of the toughest things to do. It is a skill that can be refined during an interview process. When I worked as a journalist, I learned the hard way. I would have to go into households of families who had lost a loved one with cameras and equipment to get an interview.  I learned to make them feel comfortable enough to share their deepest moment of lose with the camera recording. I learned to find something in common so that the conversation was not empty and provided context, plus I wanted to earn their trust. I would look around the room and find a picture, book, something that I could identify so we could establish some common ground. Then, I was honest in my intentions, and allowed them to make the decisions how the interview/conversation would continue. I made them feel like the gatekeeper, empowering them as the dominant in the conversation.

Listening can be fun, learning from listening is powerful. If we looked at engaging in conversation as an opportunity to learn from those whom we converse with daily, we could create a bigger knowledge economy.

OK…I figured it out after chatting with the people from Hootsuite how to add the a Fan Page to Hootsuite.

• Open Hootsuite (log in)
• Go to the bottom and click the Settings tab
• Go right under the update/status bar and click Social Networks
• Go to the right hand side of the screen, right under your Avatar and click +Add Social Network
• A pop-up menu will appear and right under Facebook, you will see Pages (You probably need to add your personal Facebook profile to Hootsuite first)
• Click Pages and then select Connect with Facebook
• It will ask you again to Connect with Facebook, click it again when prompted
• Another pop-up window will appear to ask you to log into Facebook, provide username & password and click Connect
• Another pop-up window will appear listing all of the Fan Pages your are a part of, select the Fan Page you want to add to Hootsuite
• Another pop-up window will appear that asks you if you want to allow publishing for Fan Page you want to add to Hootsuite, click Allow Publishing
• It will then take you back to the pop-up window that lists all your Fan Pages with the one you want to add to Hootsuite selected, click Add to Hootsuite
• You are done!!!

I hope this helps?

There are so many layers to a story, and those layers can continually evolve regardless of time!

I was riding home from Charleston, SC a few days ago. The wife and I were tired and it was getting close to 8pm, a long day visiting my sister-in-law Susanna at the College of Charleston. As we were navigating the back-roads of this I-385 detour, my iPhone began ringing with an unfamiliar phone number displayed. This self-employeed businessman never passes up an opportunity to talk about business, so I answered. The gentleman introduced himself and called me by my name…he said, “My name is Gary and I helped your family three years ago when I worked for Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Columbia.” This begins our little journey.

This story ultimately begins with a trip. My wife’s family is notorious for packing a car full of family and that car is notorious for breaking down at the worst of times. This time it was a hot spring day, Friday afternoon traffic in Columbia, SC. Seriously, 5pm traffic on Interstate 26 towards Bowman, SC. Bowman was their destination, where my wife’s grandfather had passed away. They needed to be at the funeral home before 6:30pm, to greet family and friends the day before the funeral. Stuck on the side of the road, they do what they normally do…call me. Being two hours behind them, I did what I knew best…call Enterprise Rent-A-Car, because they have a simple motto, “We’re Enterprise, we’ll pick you up!”

So I called the nearest Enterprise based on their location, it was a branch at the Columbia, SC airport. Gary from Enterprise answered the phone and I explained the situation. He broke protocol, took a Town and Country van, dropped it off, helped them exchange cars, and my family was on their way arriving in Bowman right at 6:30pm. He stayed with the car until the tow truck arrived and then got a ride back to the branch office. It was this can-do attitude and service that has now earned a lifetime customer, yes…I am a card carrying rewards member of Enterprise.

After hearing this story, I wrote a series of letters to his boss, the corporate office, and the southeastern manager. A series of thank you notes. It probably took an hour of my time. He had the time to help my family, I had the time to tell Enterprise…because of Gary, they now have a loyal customer.

Back to the phone call. So while talking to Gary on the phone, he began telling me that it was those letters that prompted him to call me. He was calling to thank me. He told me that those thank you letters changed his life. HOLD ON? I asked, “what do you mean, changed your life?”

He continued explaining; because of that letter, he was immediately promoted to a marketing division. After a while, and a few downsizing efforts, he was laid off. I immediately perked up and wondered where this conversation was leading. He went on to explain that he took some time to consider what was next after Enterprise. He had enjoyed investing his retirement package at Enterprise and began helping family and friends with their portfolio. This prompted him to begin researching the business of investments. After a series of meetings, many certification tests, several interviews, and a long training process…it was decision time for Edward Jones Investments. He went to meet with a VP of Edward Jones, and as a part of his application package for his own branch, he included this very letter from that I wrote to Enterprise. The VP basically told him that this letter was the only thing he needed to make his decision.

So Gary was calling me on this day, March 1st to thank me. You see, it was March 1st…this day that his branch in Lexington, SC was opening for the first time! He had reached his dream, to own his own business, be his own boss, and help people. He was thanking me for writing that letter. What he did not realize, while he was thanking me, tears were running down my eyes. I was actually thanking him, because this story, this day brought a new meaning to my life. It was this day he had changed my life. His one phone call, his few minutes thanking me made me see the world in a difference way. He had once again made a serious impact in my life.

It is amazing what a thank you note will do. It is amazing the residual effect from a single gesture. It is amazing the layers to this story, that connected us once again. I have yet to meet Gary, but I will be making a trip to shake his hand. Thanks Gary, thank you for being you. You are an inspiration!

This post is dedicated to a few people:

• To Denise Weathers, my mother-in-law who is no longer with us but made a tremendous impression on Gary that day!
• To John Warner who taught me the value of a simple social media called a thank you note!
• To Bob Dotson who has helped me learn the value of the red-string and finding those stories with layers.

So I was searching around for this option and could not figure this out. But thanks to a search and a comment in a post from Andreas Stephan, I was able to figure this out!

Andreas Stephan’s Comment:

“TweetDeck supports this natively. Took me a while to figure that out: Go to you FB account in Tweet Deck, you can add pages at the bottom of the account settings. You wil then be able to post to your fan page directly from TweetDeck. Hope this helps some people.”

Here is a step-by-step process for integrating the ability to update your Facebook Fan Page via TweetDeck. FYI, you need to be an administrator of this Fan Page to make this an option.

First, you have to add your Facebook Account to TweetDeck:

• Open TweetDeck
• Go to the upper right hand corner and look for the wrench – CLICK
• Select Accounts
• Click Add New Account
• Select Add a Facebook Account
• Provide the necessary information to add your Facebook Account
• Save

Add the Fan Page to TweetDeck to update in the status bar:

• Open TweetDeck
• Go to the upper right hand corner and look for the wrench – CLICK
• Select Accounts
• Select Facebook in the center of the screen
• Below Click Add Pages
• Log Into Facebook from TweetDeck
• Select your relevant Fan Page

Thanks so much Andreas for your help!