Is Your Social Media like Sex Without a Partner

Even though you may not have the time or desire to be social and develop relationships through social media, you still need to create an audience for your posts. Social media without an audience is like sex without a partner. It may be ...O.K., I think you can figure out the analogy. Minimum participation in social media means creating an audience through connections, friends, links or shares.

The various social media websites offer many ways to create an audience of other members. The easiest way is to invite everyone you already know to link-up with you. Why link-up with people you already know? Because no matter how well you know them, most will know very little about what you do professionally. Be prepared for people you have known for years to say “I didn't know you did that” after you connect with them on social media.

As you meet new people through your daily activities, check if they belong to the same social media as you and invite them to link with you. Ask them directly or look them up later in the social media. An invitation to be social media contacts is a great way to follow up a recent face-to-face encounter and reinforce the common interest you share that caused you to meet in the first place.

Joining social media groups, especially school related groups, can be very effective ways to quickly expand your audience. Many alumni groups will have discussion threads where other members will seek connections from alumni with similar majors, careers, location or just anybody with whom they share the same Alma mater.

As you connect with people you don't know except through social media, be sure you have your profile privacy settings configured for your personal comfort level. I list a unique email address and VOIP telephone number ($10/yr) in my social media profiles. The email is forwarded to my main account and the VOIP number records voice-mail and sends it to me as an email attachment.

Keep in mind that each social media contact has their own network of contacts that you may have access to depending on their privacy settings. Regardless of whether you can directly access this second level of social media links, your next employer, employee, client or social buddy may very well come from this extended social network. Just like in real life, it's not just who your connections are but who your connections are connected to.