If you’ve attended one of my workshops or talks you would have heard me talk about the importance of listening, particularly when it comes to Twitter. Not in the audio sense but more in the ‘pay attention to what other people are tweeting’ sense. Perhaps monitoring could be used to describe this activity but it doesn’t seem quite the right term so ‘listening’ it is.
An example of how listening can achieve instant results comes from @adoptaword – this is the Twitter account for an ingenious campaign by Ican who help children with communication activities. The idea is that you purchase adopt a word which then belongs to you for 12 months.
In the example below it’s apparent that the charity are listening for the words ‘right words’ and they suggest that Hamish MacDonald adopts a word.
@hamishmacdonald Talking about having found the right words – why not adopting some on adoptaword.com. Try it, fun&charity at once!
— Adopt a Word (@adoptaword) April 4, 2012
Within an hour he does:
@hamishmacdonald WOW! Thx for adding a rather outstanding word to our worddiverse & even adopting it! Enjoy your further search for words… — Adopt a Word (@adoptaword) April 4, 2012