Listening

Why Listening Is Important:

• Before we start to engage our communities, it’s necessary to take a step back and listen to folks. We need to identify the topics that are important to the people in our groups and see how people react in order to craft our posts or responses.

Things to Listen For:

• Topics
  • Different places will talk about varied topics.
  • Look to see what topics people are talking about like the economy, climate, choice, politics, or VP Harris and Governor Walz in your places.
• Reactions
  • Different places can affect how people react to topics.
  • Look to see if posts on current events, VP Harris, or issues you care about are met with a positive or negative reaction.

Tips for Listening:

• Check your community rules. A lot of groups don’t permit political discussions. Be mindful of the rules of your community.
• But there may be opportunities to engage that aren’t explicitly “political.” Think broadly about connections to key issues.
• Focus on opportunities for conversations. We don’t want to do a one-off post and never look at it again. Think about places to post in replies to other posts, or for moments to start a dialogue.

Listening Example:

Our first example is a group chat conversation with family members

• Before we engage right away, we want to take a step back and listen for both the Topics and Reactions.

Topic: Our main topic in this example is related
to the Climate Crisis

Reaction: By reading the replies, we can get a
better understanding of how others feel about
the topic. The main reactions here involve
feeling worried/fearful

Listening Example:

Our next example is a Facebook post in a group for New Moms

• Before we engage right away, we want to take a step back and listen for both the Topics and Reactions.

Topic: Our main topic in this example is related to Reproductive Rights

Reaction: The main reaction from the
post here involves feeling anger or fear for the future

Listening Example:

Our next example is a post from the NextDoor app

• Before we engage right away, we want to take a step back and listen for both the Topics and Reactions.

Topic: Our main topic in this example is related to Inflation/Cost of Living

Reaction: The main reaction in the replies here involves agreement
with the original poster and feelings of despair/distress