Last weekend, I started off Philly Tech Week with the most amazing event I’ve been to in ages: the Women in Technology Summit at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. It was an engaging live event with a great balance of learning, sharing, networking and support. Sessions covered a range from hands on exercises to moderated discussion. There were long, spontaneous brainstorms in the hallways, and lots of promises for follow ups with training sessions, coffee or dinner, that for once were kept.
Technology wove through the event, making connections possible everywhere. The discussions on Twitter, led to follow up introductions over lunch or tea. Extroverts drew out introverts whose ideas they’d liked in the stream. We even got napkins delivered with a quick tweet out asking where to find one.
This kind of connected, inspiring day is why I’ve grown to love Social Media. When it’s done right, all the platforms and technology are a natural extension of the relationships we develop in person. It leads us to people we might never meet otherwise and makes relationships possible that weren’t in the not so distant past.
The idea behind the rules that create good social media strategy is the same as for connections we make face to face. We tell stories to make points come alive. We share thoughts and research to help people. We involve them in what we’re doing and creating to make sure we’re on the right track. Now, we can follow an idea to a person on the other side of the world or the other side of the room before we see their face or notice their name. So when we do meet them in person, we have some common ground to build on.
The way we communicate may have changed, and the technology we use to do it may evolve by the second, but the reasons we do it are the same. Making connections that support our business and enrich our lives is at the source of it. We don’t do business with a logo or brand, we do it with people. A brand may not equal a person, but it can empower those that represent it to behave in social media with the kind of care and respect we value in face to face professional relationships. Fair and honest communications build trust. When we trust the people that represent the brand or organization, we’re much more likely to work with it.
Tara Hunt said it well in “The Whuffie Factor”.
Focus on building social capital, or trust within the community, and the market capital will follow.