My friends at Point To Point in Cleveland invited me to guest post and it just went live. The post, titled, “Playing the name game when it comes to online reputation management” comes with a back story.

You see, in February 2007 I was contacted by their president, also named Mark Goren, to discuss our “Google problem.” Since that first chat, we’ve become friends, done a little work together, and continue to serve as each others’ mentor.

The guest post talks about the importance of filtering out bad information from social media monitoring to collect results that are most relevant to your search strategy. Using the example of our name, I illustrate how to do so through simple search.

Why does this relate to planting seeds? Because the more content you produce through different social networks or the more you’re being written about, it’s vital to know where conversations are taking place if you want to manage your reputation online. In some cases, it may even make you want to distinguish your name somehow, to help make it easier to search for. Cleveland’s Mark Goren did so by using his middle initial, which you can see on the right sidebar on P2P’s blog.

Mark is a great guy and the team at Point To Point is at the top of their game. I encourage you to learn a little bit about them, their award-winning work and their unique charity, Change for $20, which they launched last year for the holidays.

To learn about how Mark and I met, read this old post.

To read today’s guest post, head on over to P2P’s blog.

To check out Change for $20 (which is probably the first thing you should do), visit the site.

As I wrote in the original post, and still believe very strongly today:

The world is smaller than ever. People are meeting new people and making new friends every day. It’s all about reaching out, connecting and making meaningful relationships. Last night’s chat was just one more powerful example.

And so is today’s guest post.

Here’s another post in a series that looks at the chapters in the Age of Conversation 2 that support, in one way or another, the Planting Seeds concept.

Why Listening is Priority #1
Simon Payn
Section: Manifestos
Page: 31

Context: Simon highlights the six things he learned when it came to setting up his own business - and all of them have to do with listening. I won’t give the explanations away, just the bulleted list of six points.

•After all, we’ve been taught that the most important skill of a great conversationalist is shutting up and listening to what the other person has to say. And any business that truly listens to the conversation that is going on around its products will show it has mastered marketing in the Age of Conversation.

So when it came to setting up my own business, I decided to make create a dialog with my prospects and clients. And, most importantly, I would really listen to what they had to say. This is what I learned:

1. Grow big ears
2. Show that you are listening
3. Ask for feedback
4. Use surveys
5. Listen to their behavior
6. Turn questions into products; turn complains into feedback”

I like how Simon breaks down the listening process here. It’s key when looking to Plant Seeds online as well. As we’ve discussed before, the first step into any social media efforts is listening - and there’s a spirit in how to do so.

These six steps speak to that spirit and are an excellent launching point for you and your business.

•”

Others in this series:
Domain-Free, by Mike Arauz

•”

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Tags: PlantingSeeds, PlantingSeeds.ca, Planting Seeds Online, Age of Conversation 2, Age of Conversation, AOC, AOC2, Age of Conversation 2 - Why Don’t They Get It, Simon Payn, Mike Arauz, Listening, Monitoring, Manifestos, Lulu, Variety The Children’s Charity,