People like to feel connected to their friends without the burden of giving them full attention. Most of the time, they say nothing else, and are simply doing their own thing. But they are always there for each other. Connected, but they focus on something else.

There are so many ways to engage in these types of occasional communications now. It started with bulletin boards and forums. Then we got chat. After that came Facebook, Twitter, and texting. Hard to imagine that people once lived without these things.

As an aside, I think the future of communications is an occasional event truly disturbing for humanity. Yes, it’s a pretty lofty statement, and you may think I’m exaggerating. But we have changed the way humans communicate, and it all unfolded in the last 20 years.

Few would argue that the advent of the telegraph, trains, cars, airplanes, telephones, radio, television or the Internet itself was not disruptive events. All these changes were in the way we communicate.

The importance of communication is casual at this scale. With it, the flow of information has been changed forever.

Social media offers an opportunity to present a human face or personality to your organization. People will respond in many ways.

Bing has published data showing that 90 percent of people seek advice from friends and family in the decision making process. The reason people seek advice from family and friends because they trust them.

In the world of social media, we define friends much more loosely. I refuse many requests from friends, but I do accept people with whom I have heard of, read articles from, or feel a sense of connection. This is very common.

People are going to impregnate a certain level of trust based on a very broad sense of the connection, and people are more likely to respect the suggestions of content from trusted sources. This makes it more likely that they share too.

In other words, what makes your organization appear more accessible and trustworthy will have a direct impact of the viral spread of content you share. When people share your content they actually recommend it to friends. This makes it much more likely than their friends re-share, or fan/friend/follow you. It also has a direct impact on your ability to receive mentions/shares/tweets and links from your social campaigns.

Making It Work For You

The key is that you are allowing people (potential customers) to have a connection with you occasionally they receive benefit from. The content/tools/price that you share is the advantage, but the connection is made deeper by injecting a little personality in the image. It helps them get to know you a little better.

Here are some strategies to make these important connections casual:

• Be casual in your communications. Many of formality rarely does well in social media.
• Show some personality. Some people take this to an extreme with most of their social stream being an expression of their personality and the actual value added components are only between 20 to 30 percent of their communications. This can work, but only if it’s completely genuine. For most organizations a modest amount of personality is all that is required.
• Encourage others. Always make sure to give back. Share other people’s content. Say nice things about others who deserve it. Be a part of the community.
• Support causes. Show some love for the things you care about. People will respond to your support of these causes and looks at you with a friendly eye.
• Invite responses. Make sure you have an audience that is large enough to generate responses before starting this. You can figure out when that is be conducting periodic tests.
• Be responsive. If someone asks a question answer it. While the response doesn’t need to be instant, the sooner you respond the better.
• Do not be demanding. Assume that no one owes you anything in the world of social media, even if they do.

Allow people to develop a casual relationship with your organization (or you) will make it much easier to build your own audience and establish your own authority.

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