Belongingness, Approval Motive, and Practical Implications For You

Belongingness Hypothesis Image credit to “The Red Boa” blog.   The belongingness hypothesis was proposed by Psychologists Baumeister and Leary in 1995, who suggested that human beings have an almost universal need to form and maintain at least some degree of interpersonal relationships with other humans. According to these theorists, belongingness is an innate quality […]

Online and Offline Relationships

Online and Offline Relationships — It Goes Both Ways “Online Building Offline Relationships”  is the title of a post by George Couros in his blog, “The Principal of Change.” George is an innovative school Principal who writes about fostering effective relationships. I couldn’t agree more with what Principal Couros wrote: If I know anything, whether it […]

Are You Getting Older and Wiser?

When you were a teenager, you may have thought you knew everything. Now that you are older, you probably realize that you didn’t know what you didn’t know then. Now you are older and, hopefully, wiser. We live and learn. I wonder what I still don’t know that I don’t know.

Although technology is central to doing things in the 21st century, the most important things in life are more about being than doing. Who you are and how you feel about that, as well as who you know and how they feel about you, are timeless issues. Although the channels may be different, communication and relationships are still important. Family and networking still provide synergy and leverage. Happiness is still related to values and virtues. “Faith, hope, and Love endure.” Truthfully, I believe I am getting older and wiser.

Engage and Interact to Build Relationships Online

Relationships online are formed by engaging in conversations and interacting. Commenting on another person’s posts or status updates is just as important as posting your own content.

Old fashioned push advertising or brochure-like web sites are impotent. Paying (investing) attention to what others are saying (writing) online is the beginning of a relationship. It is more effective to be interested than to be interesting!

Persistence and Perseverence: Keep On Keepin’ On…

Persistence Pays.  Winston Churchill gave a famous speech  on perseverance to  students. He said, “The pessimist sees the problems in every opportunity. Whereas the optimist sees the opportunity in every problem” “Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to […]

Communicating Love at a Distance

Love is a “many splendorous thing.” Love is best shared live and in person. Non-verbal communication enhances the whole experience. However, there are many situations in which lovers are not in the same location. Modern technology has provided many channels of communication to bridge the gaps. One of the most wonderful new video-conferencing tools is  Google Hangout , which allows […]

How To Make Friends

Making friends is one of the most valuable activities in life, whether measured by happiness, helpfulness, or financial benefits. Making friends usually begins with finding compatible people. In a previous post I wrote about How To Find Friends. Social networking websites have made it easy to find new friends online, but winning their loyal friendship is an art.

Interpersonal Communication and Relationship

Relationships are Built with Communication Interpersonal communication is the fundamental basis of relationship, regardless of which channels we use to communicate. The internet has added several new channels of communication to the toolbox. These new media work well when combined with the telephone — and preferably face-to-face encounters, as well. The “Togetherness Blog” expresses my thoughts […]

Relationships and Extended Family at Christmas

There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays Extended family gatherings used to be a hallmark of Christmas celebrations. Watch our short video about holiday celebrations. Bel Mooney wrote a disturbing article in the Mail Online about the sad fact that millions of grandparents are left alone at Christmas.  Ms. Mooney lamented the fact that […]

Giving Thanks for Friends Family and Love

Interdependent Relationships Relationships have values which are often greater than material possessions. Love, of course, is “the greatest of these” few things which endure. I hope we all remember how precious Love is, per se, aside from any practical fringe benefits. But I also want to point out the motivational power and the synergistic leverage […]

Attraction Branding and Perceived Similarity

Interpersonal Attraction   Attraction has been linked to similarity of attitudes, belief, and interests in university research since the 1960’s. Personally, I invested four years in post-graduate research into interpersonal attraction. The implications for social media are profound, because we open to the public intimate details about our attitudes and interests on our Facebook profiles. […]

The Social Network

The social network online is only part of the real global social network, which includes human society as a whole. The old email chat acronym, IRL (In Real Life), no longer makes sense, if it ever did. Most of what constitutes human life, such as emotions, reasoning, needs, wants, and commerce, exist online and offline, and often overlap both. […]

We Are All Branding, All The Time!

Branding is usually associated with commercial brands for products or services. But personal branding, whether online or offline, is a matter of reputation. As you interact with others, they may come to know, like, and trust you. They are open to buying what you have to offer. They may even believe in the value you […]

Building Trust with Social Media

Trust is a key component in business (and personal) decisions. Greg Ferenstein wrote an interesting post on the Mashable blog about trust in social media, in which he quoted Professor Judith Olson, who has studied the essentials of building trust in digital communication. One of her most important findings is that “responsiveness is key” in building […]

How to Build Relationships on Social Media

The foundation of any lasting relationship is a positive value exchange. In personal relationships the value is often intangible. It may be a subtle deposit in what Stephen Covey calls the “emotional bank account.” Making such deposits spontaneously and without calculation is most effective. In fact being relatively unconscious of the value exchange may be […]

Sincerity, Similarity and Attraction

Authenticity On Social Networks A psychological study revealed that out of 400 adjectives that describe personality characteristics, the #1 most attractive was sincere, and the #400 (most unattractive) was phony. People like authenticity. Philosopher James Allen, in his Essay on the Eight Pillars of Prosperity, wrote, “Attractiveness, like genius, is lost by being coveted, and possessed by […]

Relationships Depend on Follow-up!

Whether online or offline, nurturing a relationship is like growing a rose garden. It takes patience and persistent attention. Following up is like fertilizing and watering your relationship roses; it must be done consistently to keep them alive and flourishing. But not all follow up is created equal. Just as some gardeners grow prettier roses than others, […]

Social Media Campaign

Social media campaigns need to be different from advertising campaigns which push products. Unfortunately the more you try to sell, the less you sell. The situation is analogous to the rest of life, where focusing on contribution leads to more success than chasing personal gain. Modern consumers are wary of pitches and commercials. People love […]

Real Moments

“Time is of the essence,” “Time is money,” “Time is life!” Each year we have over half a million minutes — about 50 million in a lifetime, but not all moments are equal. In fact most of the minutes in our lives are wasted! Pareto’s Law, the Law of the Vital Few and the Trivial […]

Build Relationships by Being a Connector

Building relationships with social media is very similar to the way relationships have always been built. Humans haven’t changed very much in two decades of internet (or even in thousands of years). I suspect that that the “secret” exposed below would have applied equally well to cave dwellers or stone age tribes.  Although we have […]

Internet Relationships or Illusions?

What kind of relationships do you really have with Facebook Friends and Twitter followers? How does a virtual relationship differ from an offline relationship? We may get some clues from an article Mayhill Fowler wrote in the Hoffington Post, entitled Taking the Me from Social Media, quoted below:

But the heady sensation of connectedness induced by social media whisks the user quickly past contemplation of the sands upon which these Internet relationships are built.

Are “Friends” or “Followers” Really Listening?

I’m not sure about SEO, but when relationships are the goal, I believe that we need to slow down and invest more attention. Remember the Facebook motto, “Changing the world — one Friend at a time!” When I think of listening, I think of lyrics from some of my favorite songs: “Slow down, you move too fast,” “People talking without listening”…

It’s Who You Know AND … That Counts

Conversations about networking and business relationships often evoke the aphorism, “It’s not what you know that counts; it’s who you know.” I believe that both factors are obviously important, but the often overlooked fact is that what is even more important is how they feel about you.! The factors that really count include: what you know, […]

Social Media Relationships Revolutionize Advertising

Traditionally advertising has been pushed to consumers. In contrast, social media have given control to consumers. Hank Wasiak, in an article on Mashable.com, pointed out: Marketing has traditionally focused on the four “Ps”: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Social media has morphed into the fifth, and possibly most important “P”: People. A people strategy is at the […]

Relationships Matter

“it’s a pretty good bet that we really are here to make friends,” according to Peter Bregman,  CEO of Bregman Partners, Inc., a global management consulting firm. An excerpt from his article, Why Friends Matter at Work and in Life, in the Harvard Business Review is quoted below: To be a good friend, you have to give […]