Why Relationships Matter
Whenever you read anything pertaining to social media,
you'll read about relationships. On Facebook you can only
invite your "friends." LinkedIn will not allow you to
connect with people you do not know. Twitter gives you
more freedom; you can follow anyone you want, but they may
not follow you back. It's all about building and
sustaining relationships. Chris Brogan, one guru of social
media and an avid blogger, posted a blog where he
criticized people on Twitter for trying to "sell you" on
their products before they know you. He went so far as to
say that he does not follow anyone who has an auto-response
Tweet--whenever anyone follows you, an auto-response thank
you goes out. His main concern was not the auto-response
but the added request that you click on the stranger's
website or try out their new exciting product or service.
"How do you know I want your service if you don't know me?"
he asked.
Being new to Twitter myself, I was surprised by this angry
post and all the comments that followed. Most people
agreed with Brogan. Most said they "hate" those
auto-responses. Some, like me, did not realize this was
not proper "netiquette" on Twitter. Some, like me, had to
go back and revise our auto-responses to remove any
offensive links. All this leads me to think about the
importance of relationship in social media.
Clara Shih in Facebook Era tells us that the majority of
people on social media sites have very few strong contacts.
In fact most people on Facebook have only 10-20 strong
contacts even though they may have 200 or more friends.
LinkedIn used to require that you actually know the person
as a colleague - having worked with them or share a group
with that person before you could invite them to connect
with you. This has changed and now you can also invite
"friends" not just people you worked with. What all this
means is that most of us have many more weak connections
than strong connections. How do we develop a relationship
with our weak connections?
According to Shih it's through active use of those weak
connections and good use of the strong connections that
relationships form. Let's take a look at one reason
relationships matter.
The Johari Window
Two psychologists, Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham
developed a model of social interaction called the Johari
Window in their book On Human Interaction in the 1960's.
What this model teaches us is that people interact with one
another on the basis of four quadrants:
Quadrant 1: The Open Area, contains all the things we know
about ourselves that we are willing to share with others.
Examples of these kinds of things might be our love of
animals or our propensity toward travel or our devotion to
our family. Our family and friends fit nicely among the
people that we share our Open Area with. Most people
interacting via social media use blogging to share about
themselves. All the blogging primers tell us that blogging
evolved from the concept of a web-log. In other words, it
is like a diary on the web. It's your web-journal. If you
simply write about your products or services and never tell
us about yourself, we stop reading your blog. The idea of
Web 2.0 - which comprises the interactive Web or two-way
communication - evolved because people wanted to
communicate with one another. Once communication becomes
two-way, relationships form.
Quadrant 2: The Blind Area, contains what others know about
us, but what we don't know about ourselves. Some people
call these our blind spots. Perhaps we tend to talk about
ourselves a lot; perhaps we are overly indulgent with our
children. All of us have blind spots that others see but
elude us. We are so close to ourselves, we cannot see our
own strengths and weaknesses. A good example of uncovering
the Blind Area comes from Naked Conversations. When
Microsoft hired Robert Scoble they described him as someone
who "lets his flaws hang on his sleeve. He's curious like
a child and it's hard not to like and trust him." Being
curious like a child enables you to open up to your Blind
Area and win the trust of others. Hearing what others say
enables you to uncover your blind spots. When people slap
your hand for being too authoritative on your blog or for
being too flip on Facebook, pay attention; they may be
uncovering something about you that you didn't know.
Social media enable us to learn what others think about
us—good or bad.
Quadrant 3: The Hidden Area, things about us, our products
or our services that we don't want others to know
constitute the Hidden Area. Obviously, as online
communication grows and expands the likelihood for us to
keep things hidden decreases. The challenge that social
media presents for us is to let down our walls and allow
others to see who we really are. Social media enables us
to put ourselves out there for scrutiny. When we post a
blog and share it with our Facebook friends, we tell them
something about ourselves we might not say face-to-face.
When we find a delicious little quote that we post to our
followers on Twitter, we let them know a little something
about us they may not know. Who are the people you share
your Hidden Area stuff with? People you trust. Once you
trust your friends on Facebook or your followers on
Twitter, you begin creating a relationship. Someone once
said, "Information is like sand. The more you try to hold
onto it, the more slips through your hands."
Quadrant 4: The Unknown Area, the Johari Window contains a
quadrant where we keep things that are deep in our
sub-conscious minds that neither we nor others know. These
things are left undiscovered until we unleash our
creativity. Luft and Ingham tell us that once we listen to
others and share openly, in other words pay attention to
our blind spots and release information from our Hidden
Area, we open the door to the Unknown Area. Social media
provides opportunities to listen to our connections and to
share and talk with them. Bernoff and Li in Groundswell
counsel us over and over that the challenge of social media
is not which tool to use but the discovery of ways to both
talk and to listen to the groundswell.
Talking and listening create a very large Open Area that
helps us become authentic and transparent. Authenticity
and transparency create trust. And trust, by the way,
creates relationships. That's why we strive for
relationships. Probably the most successful woman
entertainer of our time, Oprah, delivered the commencement
address at Wellesley College in 1997. Some rate this
speech as the best speech of its kind ever. Why?
"Authenticity oozes out of every paragraph of this speech,"
said Richard Green in an interview with USA Weekend. The
power of openness works not only for Oprah in commencement
speeches, but can work for you if you are willing to let
down the walls and welcome the multitudes.
----------------------------------------------------
Joan Curtis, EdD is founder of Total Communications
Coaching where she specializes in helping smart, capable
professionals move ahead in their careers by becoming
skilled communicators. She has taught numerous workshops on
presentation skills, and provides personal coaching to
empower people to be dynamic public speakers.
What's your social media IQ?
http://www.totalcommunicationscoach.com/how-is-your-social-m
edia-iq.htm
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