Influence flows from our relationships. It can flow both ways. Each of us influences others and we allow ourselves to be influenced by others as we learn and grow personally and professionally. If we expect others to hear us out, then we too have to be willing to suspend what we know long enough to listen and consider ideas that may be quite different from our own. That doesn't mean we abandon what we know although that's possible. It simply means we are open to the ideas and experiences and wisdom of others. Like my friend and colleague Stephanie Nestlerode says, "Wisdom is wisdom, no matter the source".
I've been thinking a lot about why individuals and organizations would want to actively engage in social media. From my perspective social media offers a way for people in prevention to not only inform and increase awareness but to also listen, learn and respond to people. Social media offers a creative outlet to host conversations that connect us in ways that establish a foundation for more. I see four building blocks between the bookends of relationship and influence. While our offline, face-to-face relationships are absolutely essential, our online relationships (and networks) are equally important in today's social media rich environment. As I think about it, these four essential building blocks actually apply to both online and offline relationships.
podcast here). He asks, what are the top four hot news items in your community that most everyone is concerned about? What is the relationship of prevention to these concerns? How do we keep our work relevant with all the competing sources? We can't really expect people without prevention experience to make the connections, right? Take a few minutes to listen to Paul as he offers an example of making prevention relevant to the hot local news of the day and then try the activity yourself. Prevention is our work and the onus is on us to draw the connections or be increasingly ignored, overlooked or tossed aside as irrelevant. When we can connect to the hot issues, hashtags and trends we can make the case between those things and prevention, strengthening our community's understanding.
So now what? Here's a set of questions that may help.
- How connected am I (or are we)? Just in sheer numbers, how many connections do you have? How are they growing? From an organizational view, do you have one person or one team that takes care of your social media or do others across the organization get involved to support and create a ripple effect?
- How visible are you? Where? Is it working? Is your organization still using email and print-based newsletters as your primary communications method? Ouch! Do people see your posts regularly? How many? How often? How recent? When you search on your name or organization, what comes up? Is it recent? Do you like what you see?
- How relevant are your posts to local and trending topics? Are you able to make a case for prevention related to the hot news? How do you support others who do work that is relevant to yours?
- How much and what type of social media action are you getting? Simple likes or compelling comments and shares?
What needs to be added? What questions have helped you with building relationships?
Where has social media enabled you to establish relationships and exercise influence?
What obstacles have gotten in the way? How have you overcome them?