Booher BanterBusiness Communication Consultant

Social media has been called the world’s biggest cocktail party. So let’s stay with that metaphor for a moment. Unless you’re attending solely for the purpose of pushing products and services on unsuspecting peers (not recommended), you walk in with the intention of fitting in. You expect to see people you already know and strengthen your relationship with them. You hope to meet new people who will enrich your life in the future. Where these people are concerned, you can offer help in the form of introductions to others, answers to questions, and ideas and information in your area of expertise.

When you walk into the typical cocktail party, you don’t expect a formally planned evening, with everyone being given 10 minutes on stage to introduce himself and present a question for the group to give input on, or with a panel of experts to present information, with Q&A to follow. Instead, the conversation flows freely among ever-changing mix-and-match groups.

That’s where the cocktail party metaphor breaks down. Typically, it’s taboo to bring up heavy business topics during a cocktail party. The party represents a time to get to know others socially—personality, family, hobbies, and interests apart from work. So LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs resemble a cocktail party—but also a formal networking event and an advisory group rolled into one platform. That is, “attendees” to the party formally introduce themselves beforehand by way of written profiles and tell you their interests in connecting.

That difference makes all the difference in how you present yourself and think about connecting online.

Think Value
The Twitter stream has trash, LinkedIn has spammers, and Facebook can become frivolous. So if you want to stand out from the crowd, communicate something of value. “It’s a bad hair day” lacks inspiration. “Waiting in line at the airport” doesn’t contribute to people’s lives. “Life is what you make it” doesn’t provoke deep thought. Consider contributing to the stream of communication with value statements and provocative questions, not polluting it.

Identify What Expertise You Can Contribute to the Conversation
Don’t be shy about sharing. What would you give an opinion about at a networking event with your colleagues and clients? They’re listening online. For starters, provide helpful tips in your areas of expertise. For example, I tweet communication tips—and that’s a fairly broad umbrella: business or technical writing, presentation skills, interpersonal skills, personal presence, running effective meetings, listening, organizational communication, resolving conflict, persuasion. You get the idea. Your expertise might be anything from kayaking, to coyotes, to cooking.

Other ideas for valuable comments: Your recommendations for travel, books, movies, speakers, learning products or events; your opinions or provocative questions on current events or trends and how they affect our lives; insights from some self-development program you’ve participated in; new research (polls, surveys, test data); predictions about your industry, social changes, or moods in the country or your workplace.

Don’t Confuse Value With Profundity
That’s not to say that every time you want to tweet or add a comment on someone’s blog post, you have to be so profound as to cause people to grab a pen and capture the thought for posterity. Reminding people to be grateful for good health when you’ve just lost a loved one certainly isn’t a new thought. But it serves to remind people to cherish what’s important. Telling someone why you enjoyed a movie may not be profound, but may increase his understanding and enjoyment of the movie. A patriotic post about why you love this country reminds others to be grateful.

Don’t let the “value proposition” cause you to hesitate in joining online conversations. As in face-to-face discussions, just try not to bore people with inane comments.

Make sure your online comments carry as much weight as those witty words you work so hard to deliver face to face.

Dianna Booher, an expert in effective communications, founded Booher Consultants in 1980. Dianna has written more than 40 books in the fields of business communication and productivity. Her latest books include Creating Personal Presence: Look, Talk, Think, and Act Like a Leader and Communicate with Confidence, Revised Edition. As a high-caliber keynote speaker who inspires audiences worldwide, Dianna delivers focused speeches and training programs to address specific communication challenges.

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