Social networking, being a set of activities enabled by technology, should make it easy to connect with a lot of people at once, right? And, by being connected to all those folks, I should be able to capitalize on many more opportunities through the sheer volume of new connections, right?
But, with each new connection I make, my overhead for keeping in touch with an increasing number of people I’m connected with increases as well. Wouldn’t it better if I could simply use technology itself to automate the process of keeping in touch with all those people? That would free-up my time for finding new people and new opportunities to connect with. (Unless I could automate those activities, as well, in which case I’d be free to go to the beach!)
Well, no. I think we tend to lose the bubble when we allow auto-text messages, automatic following and mass messaging to take over the relationship-building activities that’s best left to humans in the networking equation.
But, let’s face it, the more we connect, the more people we’re connected with. That’s a heck of a lot of work. What good then is all that underlying technology if not to make our life easier?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for using no technology in networking. That would be, well, dumb.
But, what I am saying is to keep technology appropriately confined to its role as an enabler, rather than as a crutch in that relationship-building process.
In a previous post about automation in social media, I listed some common sense activities drawing similarities between online social networking and live/brick-and-mortar type social networking.
Listed there, too, are a few tools for areas where I think automation does help our social media activities. Namely, in the areas of listening and awareness.
The main point being that, if you’re going to automate anything in your online networking activities, try not to take the easy way by delegating your relationships and conversations to a ‘bot. Rather, use technology to enable your listening/awareness activities. In that way, your conversations are more focused and relevant to areas closely aligned with your interests and expertise.
When you put technology to work for you in this way, you’ll be using it to smartly support you, and not to blindly represent you.
