Today I read the following quote from Oprah Winfrey “People don’t change behavior or positions based on what they know. They change based on what they feel.” That quote I think is a corollary to one thing that I have believed for a long time – That is – “Perception is reality to the perceiver”.  Think about it, if someone believes something to be the case they often persist in that belief even in the face of evidence to the contrary.  Why is this the case?  I do not know for sure, but I think it has to do with preconceived notions, value systems, myth or things that have been touted as fact for a long time.

So what does this mean for us?  It means we have to be aware of our audience’s perception of us and be prepared to make the appropriate adjustments to square the perception with our reality.  The social media tools can and should be a major component in this quest.  First, we should be tracking any mention of us on the social media networks.  Google Alerts and other tools will provide you daily with a list of items that appear with you or your organizations name.  Strategically placed questions in the various social media forums, Twitter and Facebook come to mind, can enlist responses that provide a picture of how we are viewed.  Armed with the information that we glean from all sources we can, again using the social media tools, work to change the perception our audience holds of us.  It can also mean that our current offerings are not meeting the needs of our audience.  This too is valuable information and can provide us with what we need to make the changes necessary to meet the expressed wants and needs.

Not adapting to what we find is analogous to pushing a chain up the hill – it does not work!  Start today to build your intelligence system and begin assembling all of the information you can acquire and be ready to adapt.