Interpersonal competence is one of the keys to success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success. If you want to become interpersonally competent, you need to do three things. 1) Get to know yourself. Use this self knowledge to better understand others. 2) Build and maintain strong, lasting relationships with the important people in your life. 3) Learn how to resolve conflict with minimal disruption to your relationships.
I’ve always thought of relationship building as an up close and personal thing. And, while there still is no substitute for face to face in person relationship building, I’ve come to the conclusion that social networks and social networking are fast becoming an important part of relationship building.
In their great book, 42 Rules for 24 Hour Success on LinkedIn, Chris Muccio, David Burns and Peggy Murrah do a great job in explaining how you can build relationships on LinkedIn. This book is filled with important information on how you can get the most out of LinkedIn. You can read my review on Amazon.com.
Here’s an example of how I used LinkedIn to build relationships. I believe that giving with no expectation of return is a great relationship building tool. That’s why I always offer to write and post a recommendation for people I know well who send me LinkedIn connection requests. I do this because I want to be helpful. It’s a way of giving with no expectation of return. However, almost everyone for whom I write a recommendation returns the favor.
Late last night, I came across a post on My Venture Pad by Debra Murphy called “Develop a Social Media System.” I read the post and learned about an app called Tweet Deck. Tweet Deck works with Twitter. It solves the biggest problem I have with Twitter – organizing the tweets posted by people I am following. If you use Twitter, you know that it moves fast. The more friends you have, the more difficult it can become to keep up with what they send you.
Tweet Deck solves that problem. At its most basic, it gives you three columns – 1) all friends; 2) replies to posts you’ve made, and 3) direct messages to you. As soon as I set it up this morning (something that is very easy to do), Tweet Deck organized my tweets. I saw that Jill Koenig replied to a post on my mother’s passing, and that Roger Parker sent me a direct message doing the same. In my pre Tweet Deck days (yesterday), I would have missed these messages. I did miss a few messages that Paulette Ensign sent me back in November.
I’m pretty impressed with Tweet Deck. It allows you to build and maintain relationships with people you know personally, and those with who you have an on line relationship only. I’m finding that on line relationships are playing an increasingly important role in my personal and professional success. Also, you can customize Tweet Deck to best serve your particular needs. I’ll do that and let you know how I made out.
The common sense point here is simple. Successful people are interpersonally competent. Interpersonally competent people build and maintain strong relationships with the important people in their lives. Face to face, real time conversations are best for relationship building. However, social networking is playing an increasingly important role in relationship building. Sites like LinkedIn are great for building professional relationships. Twitter tools like Twitter Deck are very helpful in keeping up with people and building strong relationships on line. Try them both. Get LinkedIn and Twitter accounts if you don’t have them, and then work them. They will both help you build strong relationships.
That’s my take on relationship building, LinkedIn, Twitter and Twitter Deck. What’s yours? Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts. Also, if you are a Twitter Deck expert, please give us a little tutorial on how to make the most of it. As always, thanks for reading.
Bud
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