Why listening trumps talking for PR pros

Have you noticed that “storytelling” has become the new black in marketing and PR?

Everyone wants to be a storyteller, to capture people’s attention, and to be memorable. Yet we at Tier One have learned what might seem a counterintuitive lesson over the years: Successful storytelling depends as much on how well you listen as on how well you can talk. (More, actually.) If anything, this precept has proven truer in the era of social media and content strategy.

Listening requires patience. Think about how you’d behave at a cocktail party or networking event. Say you’ve got a juicy story all teed up in your mind, and one (or several) people you’d like to impress standing right in front of you. Would you blurt your story out at the first conversational lull, regardless of what the current topic is? Hardly. To engage your listeners and make the most of your tale, you have to listen first, then jump in at the right moment.

Here are three ways we build listening into our public relations strategy—and why listening matters more than most people realize.

Know the conversations you want to enter.