Imagine Your Reality

As social media policies are developed, one factor that needs to be considered is relationships. Since social media is ideally about creating and cultivating relationships with other people, a social media policy needs to consider those relationships and respect them while also making it clear to employees that they also have a relationship with the company.

In fact, a social media policy should, right from the beginning, make it clear that there is a relationship between the company and the employee. That kind of understanding can help policy makers frame their policy in terms of showing employees how that relationship is impacted by their actions on social media. At the same time, policy makers do want to consider that employees are using social media to be social, to answer questions, share ideas, and otherwise cultivate relationships with other people for a variety of reasons.

In developing a policy that employees will need to follow, a special section should be devoted to the company’s stance on respecting the personal lives of the employees as well as the relationships employees cultivate and maintain on social media. Employees need to know that their privacy will be respected and that their choices for who they contact won’t be held against them, as long as it doesn’t endanger the company. That last point is essential for employees to understand, so that likewise they respect the relationship they have with the business. Sharing proprietary information would endanger the company, or speaking badly of a fellow employee or client on a social media forum would also endanger the company. Employees need to consider the relationship they have with the company they work for, so that when they communicate online, they do so and still protect company secrets and represent the company respectfully.

While an employee might only work eight hours a day, s/he still nonetheless represents the company 24/7 by virtue of being employed there. This doesn’t mean the company owns the employee, but it does mean that the employee needs to recognize that s/he always has a relationship with the company and that relationship will effect other relationships, insomuch as what the employee says about work to the people s/he interacts with. By addressing social media relationships in a policy, companies can help employees understand the importance of respecting the relationship they have with their company, while also cultivating new relationships with people they meet online.

I’ve been changing my approach to networking quite a bit since late April. One of those changes has involved asking myself who I’m meaningfully connected with. When I think of meaningful, I think not just of the frequency of connection both on or offline, but also how much I know the person, and also what kind of active relationship I have with that person.

For example, if I attend a leads referral group each week, I would rate my connection to each of the people as fairly weak, even if we are actively passing leads. The only way that will change is if we actually meet with each other outside the group, and even then the connection could be weak if all we talk about is business.

A different example: I’ve recently started working with a web developer. I’ve brought him in to one of my clients and we might be pitching another client. We obviously have a good business relationship, but I’ve decided to extend it a bit further, so we’ll be getting together for lunch or dinner to talk about other things than business. Why? Because I feel that getting to know him outside of business gives both of us an opportunity to strengthen the existing relationship.

The more actively involved you become in someone’s life, the deeper the connection that’s established. This doesn’t mean you need to become best friends with everyone you network with, but it does mean that getting more involved is a really useful way to meet people and grow connections, which in turn can help grow business.

A final example: I joined a task for a local school district. The opportunity for connection it presents me is that I get to know some people outside of the context of business…we’re focusing on how we can help the school. So it allows me to see a different side of those people and what’s important to them. The result is I’m connected in a deeper way than I was before.

Networking isn’t just about passing business on to other people. Networking is really about making strong connections, learning about people, and helping them.

What do you think? What are you doing to deepen your connections with other people?