Planting Seeds, for many people and businesses, often starts way before you ever leave a single trace online. For many, the first step to jumping into an online life means becoming familiar with what’s going on and what’s being said.

When I coach clients, I explain that this is a three step process at first – and then the three steps merge into one over time.

WHAT ARE THE THREE STEPS?

1. Listening: Monitoring what’s being said, understanding the new online culture, keeping tabs on keywords
2. Responding: Acknowledging what’s being said, adding value to the community, acting as a resource
3. Initiating: Blogging, micro-blogging, sharing, participating in social networks

Visually, these three steps stand independently at first. You may be in the “listening” mode for a long while before you ever decide to respond to or initiate a conversation. However, as you move from one to the other, they merge into one, all becoming one function.

It would kind of look like this at first:

At this point, you’re taking baby steps, getting comfortable, finding your way into your new online life.

But once you move from one step to the next, these efforts become one:

Now, listening, responding and initiating is all one activity, an ongoing process, an approach to commit to.

Over the next couple of days, we’ll delve into this further, get to understand each function, and break down the different ways you can participate at each level.

If you have thoughts about the LRI model, I’d love to hear your comments below.

Tags: PlantingSeeds, Planting Seeds Online, Listening, Responding, Initiating, Monitoring, Blogging, Micro-blogging, Sharing, Social Media, Social Networks, Adding Value, Keywords