Page 169 - Essentials of Human Communication

148 ChApteR 7 Interpersonal Relationships

follower, a blogger and a reader, a friend or contact on Facebook or LinkedIn, for example.
The suggestions for more effective relationships are the same as are the suggestions for more
effective communication. In all of these relationships, it is dialogue (rather than monologue)
that is emphasized. In fact, the defining characteristics of Web 2.0 is to move the online expe-
rience from monologue (for example, reading newspapers online) to dialogue (where com-
menting/reviewing/liking/+1ing) are essential parts of the communication experience.

tweeting Unlike other social network sites, people can follow you on Twitter whether
you like it or not. But, assuming that you want some kind of relationships between yourself
and those who follow you, consider these suggestions. In all of these lists of suggestions, the
recommendations are generally applicable to all social networks and yet some seem more
logically placed with one medium rather than another.
● Leave room for retweets (if you want retweets). Keep your tweet to 120 characters.
● Avoid “fast following” tools. These will likely create problems for you.
● Tweet items of interest to yourself but also keep in mind your readers.
● Treat criticism as the start of a dialogue rather than a personal attack.
● Tweet in moderation. Not everything that happens deserves a tweet.
● Tweet positively; avoid angry tweets.
● Create a complete profile; revealing what you want and keeping hidden what you don’t
want revealed.
● Limit promotional materials; Twitter is personal.
● Retweet if you wish to be retweeted.

Blogging Although many people view blogs as monologic, they are best viewed as dia-
logic. Their great value is in creating dialogue and so a blog post, at least for the traditional
blog, is ideally one that provides information with a personal slant for a specific audience that
creates some measure of discussion. Assuming that this is your aim or close to it, here are a
few suggestions for making this a more effective interaction.
● Offer syndication. RSS feeds will greatly help in spreading the word.
● Be both informational and personal; blog posts are more personal in nature than are arti-
cles or websites that are more purely informational.
● Be consistent in style and format. It will help brand your blog as unique—not unlike
McDonald’s; readers will know what to expect.
● Build your blog and your posts around a theme. Posts unrelated to the theme are gener-
ally perceived as noise and are likely to lose you readers.
● Reply to comments. Dialogue.
● Track statistics so you can get insight into the posts that are read often and those that
aren’t.
● Create attractive titles and relevant identifying labels. Make it as easy as possible for oth-
ers to retrieve your materials.

Social/Workplace networking Perhaps the social media that comes first to mind is
Facebook, by far the largest of the social networking sites. But, Google+ and Myspace serve
similar purposes as do numerous others. LinkedIn and Plaxo, on the other hand, serve
mainly business purposes—for example, getting a job or promotion, finding likely candidates
for a job, networking, or mentoring. Despite these differences, some similar suggestions
govern effective relationships and communication in these types of sites.
● Be careful of uploading photos that will reflect on you negatively, especially with alcohol
or drugs. Interesting enough, one research student found that 85% of 225 profiles exam-
ined (average age 19.9 years) make alcohol references (Egan & Moreno, 2011).