Like most of my friends and professional pals living in today’s digital universe, I am frequently targeted by literally thousands of people from all walks of life around the globe for engagement on LinkedIn and other social media platforms. From twitter to Snapchat and everything between, I receive a constant barrage of dialog that mostly implies a responsibility on my part – and a further implied expectation on the sender’s end – to respond directly to whatever pitch they’re throwing. I know you’ve all been there, and know exactly what I am talking about.
Please don’t get me wrong. Social Media is supposed to be just that: social. However, just because we happen to be at the same party, doesn’t mean I’m obligated to hang out at the martini bar all night with a person I don’t know. In my experience, these situations seem to be wrought with some blatant sense of entitlement – or worse – a bit of ignorance, especially when conducted under the auspices of business development.
The rise of social media, and its permanent thread in our global communications fabric, leads to constant development of new channels of broadcast. Each platform serves as a tool designed for a specific distribution delivery and receiving avenue. Because of this, I always emphasize the necessity of utilizing the correct social media tool for the right audience in all of my lectures and consultations – a “better practices” protocol.
In applying this simple concept, I began to see the need to actually communicate to the public at-large how best to connect with me for both social and professional dialog. At first, I described how I use LinkedIn, and whom I will connect or engage with on the platform. I quickly found that virtually no one actually took the time to read it – or worse, as they just didn’t care to abide by it. So I developed a brief description of How I Use Social Media on my personally-branded website…and it works.
I encourage you to do the same, and please let me know how it improves your own communications stream.
