Something I’ve noted with fascination is how many people have commented in person on the post I wrote about how to write Linkedin introductions. I’ve only gotten one negative critique, where the person accused me of overthinking the writing of introductions. And what that tells me is that people do want social context, when it comes to introductions, or for that matter, any conversation that occurs via social media. In fact, one person I spoke with mentioned that he didn’t accept generic invitations most of the time, precisely because there was no social context to justify making a connection.
The title of this post is: Is being social on social media overrated? My answer is no it isn’t overrated, and if anything it’s underrated, because many businesses and people aren’t thinking about being social while on social media, which means they aren’t working to provide a social context or participating in one when having conversations. It might seem picky to focus on how to write good Linkedin introductions, but is it actually picky, if doing so provides context for not only accepting an invitation, but actually trying to develop and offline relationship as well an online one?
To be truly successful in social media involves more than just being on sites and participating on them. While that can be a good first step, if your only interactions are limited to social media, you aren’t making full use of the social aspect of social media. Social context counts in social media because it provides people the opportunity to determine the value of the communication. More than that however, social context provides you the means to actually take a conversation that starts online into a more personal space, where you can learn more about what a person needs.
The value I find in social media is that lets me make a connection with each person I follow, but to really make that connection be more than a number means actually doing your best to set up social context and interest in having further conversation not only via social media, but other mediums. Social media is social, but to really utilize it as a social medium means actually recognizing that you’re not just using technology or analyzing who clicked what, but also looking at the actual relationships developing on social media and asking yourself how you can also develop those relationships beyond just having a follower or occasionally commenting on news. By establishing social context and making an effort to be social via social media you can actually form relationships that turn into business…but remember not all the conversation will happen on social media. At some point it needs to move offline to take it to the level where you bring in business.
