When we speak to people – we communicate, but do you on-line?

There you are about to walk through or exit a place via the door and people are following you or entering in the other direction, you hold the door open for them and you exchange comments thanking each other…..

You bump into another person and you apologise……

Someone does something for you and helps you, you say thank you because they have assisted you

You do something for someone to help them or acknowledge what they have done by congratulating – a word or two of thanks is exchanged…..

Someone says hello and introduces themselves to you and answer back…..

Just four examples of what we do in our lives each and every day, we show our manners and are polite due to the way we have been brought up in society – so, what do you do on-line? Do you operate in the same way? If not, why not?

With the increasing use of Social Media and how we operate – are you behaving properly? Whilst there maybe not be defined rules as to how operate on-line, why don’t you replicate what you do in your normal day on-line? So let me ask two questions:-

• You see something on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ LinkedIn or Xing to name but a few, yet what do you do? You like the item, share it, re-tweet it, favourite it, Plus 1 it or comment on it – why do you do this?
• Whilst using these platforms, you write or share something and in turn you get people who like the item, share it, re-tweet it, favourite it, Plus 1 it or comment on it – so why do you not thank them or acknowledge what they have done every time?

As I mentioned before, in normal every day life you do the first question as a matter of course and the second question, you do this automatically, so why can’t you do this on this on-line?

Just a simple piece of etiquette can go a long way and helps you to start on the road to:-

• Engage and/or engagement
• Interaction and/or interaction
• Influence

Just by developing the mirroring of off-line and on-line of your activities, you will start to engage with your audience and thus starting to create interaction between you both. Once this interaction starts to take place, you are both starting to exert influence on each other. Once this influence starts to grow between you both become members of each other’s Circle of Influence – thus you are each other’s Key Person of Influence.

Should you be wanting to develop yourself, your work and/or your company on-line, you truly have to create the correct on-line presence and develop your credibility thus, your Circle of Influence will help you and hence why it is important that you interact.

Whilst the last few paragraphs seem to hint and revolve around the same points, you need to understand why this is crucial. In today’s fast-moving world of the internet, your presence and your performance is key.

Let me leave you with these four little tips, which whilst maybe little, but in the on-line community that is the internet and Social Media, these little tips are very powerful and crucial:-

• Treat any part of Social Media like you would when applying for a job. The Curriculum Vitae you would handover or the Application Form you would complete, you detail everything and tell the truth – so why would lie or be false on-line?
• As pointed out at the start, off-line you always thank people and exchange messages – so do the same on-line. When people engage with the items you share on-line, always try to acknowledge. Whilst you may not be able to answer every single comment, like or share made about your article, at least comment on it, thanking people as this will show that you are engaging with your audience.
• When you are communicating, make sure you are doing this right and with the correct intention in mind as well replication too. For example, many people send tweets which are up to 140 characters and the reason for this, was that it was a facility to share and update your audience with what you are doing. So when writing your tweet, endeavour to keep it below 100 characters, so when people re-tweet it, at least it will a) have name in it so you get credited and b) the tweet is re-tweeted in full. Also, when you share items, say from Facebook to Twitter, make sure the message is there, two people send the message but it is just a link and people tend to skip this in the majority of occasions due to issues over the links being not secure or they can’t be bothered as they are scanning quickly over these messages.
• What are the rules? Make sure you obey to stop you getting into trouble. Take the two most important Facebook rules – a) you must be over 13 (but many parents allow their children on below that age) and b) Facebook is personal, so have your page for personal use and create a business page. If you use a personal page and treat it as a business, Facebook will close it down and you have lost everything which can’t re-activated. The latter also applies to LinkedIn too.

So, I hope this article and the four points above have been of interest and help you with how yow behave, engage and interact with your audience on-line in the future…..