Yesterday I wrote a post on how Ali Davies and I came to meet in person during her recent trip to Vancouver. (Ali is in the process of getting ready to relocate to Vancouver from Ireland.) Meeting Ali was a great experience and I blogged about it because to me, it reinforced two important things:
- How incredibly small the world becomes when we use the tools of social media to really engage with one another.
- Why it is critical that we invest our energies in building deeper relationships with one another whenever possible.
Today, I had a series of Skype calls with colleagues who live and work in various parts of the world. I came to know each of these people via my social media connections. The focus of our conversations included discussions about our lives, our areas of work and also about how each of us are using the online world to support the growth of our business plans in various ways.
One of the people I spent quite a bit of time chatting was Paul O’Mahony, who lives in Cork, Ireland. Now considering my meeting yesterday with Ali, here is where the story actually gets pretty interesting:
It turns out that Paul actually knows Ali via Twitter. Despite both living in the Cork area of Ireland, Ali and Paul have never actually met face to face – yet they have been exchanging tweets and retweets with each other for the last 2-3 years. I met Ali face to face yesterday, here in Vancouver, because of our joint connection to Liz Strauss and SOBCon. I met Paul face to face (via Skype) today because of our joint connection to Jacqueline Carly and the #12er community. As of now, I know each of them that much better – because collectively we all took the time to invest in developing a deeper relationship with one another.
Social media gives us the ability to create and nurture these kinds of connections each and every day. That is both the magic and the power that it offers us; however ultimately it is what we choose to do with these connections that matters the most. We can play safe; limiting ourselves to 140 character tweets and comments on posts or we can strive for more. It is up to us to decide if we want to create deeper, more meaningful relationships or not. Late tonight Paul left a long comment on my blog. Here is some of what he had to say about all of this:
There are so many amazing people using Twitter in different ways. There isn’t time or energy to develop relationships with more than a tiny few. What influences you to develop a closer relationship with an individual or brand? What is the tipping-point factor that clinches it for you – that gets you to commit extra time & energy to deepening a Twitter contact into a relationship on towards a deeper collaboration? I don’t have the answer but Jane Boyd is showing us the way I sense. Whatever Jane has done she’s opened up the possibility of new & valuable connections-of-a-deeper-kind for two people on the other side of the globe. And Jane I think you’ve done it as if by magic – this must be the last thing you imagined would happen when you joined 12 in 12 with @fitarella. Certainly I’m still recovering from the virtual shock of finding out Ali’s met Jane f2f. This must be a case-study – a real live case study that shows the nature of the world we can nurture & enjoy.
Are you making these kinds of connections over social media? What are you doing to create deeper, more meaningful relationships? How can deeper relationships benefit you and your business?
I think the point that we can’t develop every twitter contact into a deeper relationship is very valid. For all sorts of reasons.
Ali – I totally agree with you…that would be most unrealistic. I do think though, that we can all make efforts to connect with people who have similar goals, values and passions to our own. For me, developing deeper relationships serves multiple purposes – both from a business and a personal perspective. It is a win-win for sure.