If you’ve got nothing to say, silence works

I was recently with a group of start-up businesses.

This small group of founders was excitedly debating the best way to promote their businesses using social media. Each was bemoaning that they were not getting much traction on their Twitter and Facebook pages, and one was asking me if it was “worthwhile” to start a blog.

Here’s the thing: only blog, tweet and use Facebook if you have something worth saying that might be of interest and value to someone else. They are not promotional tools, they are listening tools.

It is the same inside your business – as leaders we don’t have all the answers, so sometimes we are just better off not saying anything at all.

I was recently in a planning meeting and because I am the founder of RedBalloon and have been hanging around for 11 years – I found that if I spoke in the planning meeting then a disproportional amount of attention was been attached to my thoughts.

As a leader my job is to listen, both inside the business – and externally.

Silence works.