When was the last time you went to an event where you actually talked to another human being? You might have gone to a sales meeting, a training class, a convention, a trade show, or a networking event. Maybe you even attended an interview. Social networking is just that, the use of dedicated websites and applications to interact with other users or to find people with similar interests to oneself. (source: Google snippet)
Regardless of why you went, you sat in the audience or auditorium and watched or listened to a speaker talks to you.
For many companies, there is simply no room for this anymore. Companies are getting bigger and more spread out. People are living and working on opposite coasts. Customers, employees, suppliers, and others don’t even live close by.
Even within those constraints, the ability to actually connect with someone face-to-face is still very much possible, especially in the digital age.
As social media has come along, it’s had a huge impact on how people interact. Business owners increasingly use these social tools to create better communication, engagement, and community. Communicating, collaborating, and sharing information in real-time has been democratized.
Social Networking has taken over Live Interaction, but is it a Positive or Negative Signal?
Clearly, online social media networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., have become a force within business today. It’s no longer just about posting on your blog or tweeting up a storm.
Online engagement is the new way to interact with customers (read: social networking!). There are many benefits to interacting online but also some drawbacks. A recent study showed that online interactions could take a toll on people. People feel uncomfortable when they are not being treated as human beings, and that makes them feel negatively toward the brand.
There was a time when people used to gather together to discuss the smallest of their problems and share the littlest of things that made them happy when people waited for Saturdays and Sundays to come so that they could sit with their friends and family and talk about their hearts out, when they did not need a reason to see each other and always took some time out for their peers unlike NOW!
Social networking sites have both; their advantages as well as disadvantages. You will find more people talking about the advantages than the disadvantages; the advantages are more pronounced and notable. However, the disadvantages cannot be neglected either.
Ever since Facebook came into existence, people have preferred to write on their friends’ walls rather than going to meet them or even call them. It has pretty much turned our priority list upside down. It has very well done the job left undone by our busy routines of minimizing social gatherings. For instance, if a friend has a birthday, we no longer plan a surprise party. Instead, we plan a birthday photo collage or a video of all their beloved friends saying happy birthday. But seriously and honestly, tell me what means more to you; a group of friends surprisingly showing up on your birthday or a photo collage with each one of them in it. I, for some kind of odd reason, you tend to choose the photo collage option, then I AM SORRY, but you cannot exchange hugs with a Photo!
Back when social sites didn’t exist, if, due to some understandable circumstances, one could not make it to your place on a special occasion, they would at least place a call, which is still far better than being informed via a Facebook message.
The whole idea behind these social sites was to enhance socializing, but in turn, it has minimized it to a great extent.
– Orby Cooper.
