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Jeremy Goldman is a social media and ecommerce executive at Unilever. He has more than 10 years of experience as an online marketer and emerging technologies strategist for a number of beauty brands, including Dove, Kiehl’s, TIGI, Jurlique, and Temptu. Follow him @jeremarketer.
Social media can be applied to all kinds of activities, including staying in touch with relatives, getting advice, and playing games. One type of application that is growing is the development of in-person relationships resulting from connections originally built exclusively on social media platforms. Building connections in person is incredibly important despite the rise of social media, according to Ed Keller and Brad Fay, co-authors of The Face-to-Face Book: Why Real Relationships Rule in a Digital Marketplace.
Keller and Fay’s research uncovered that in the United States, 75% of conversations occur in person, with less than 10% occurring via social media. Their data also showed that, on average, in-person conversations are thought to be more credible, and often skew more positive than those conducted using social media.
Of course, it’s not always easy to manage the transition of a social media acquaintance into an in-person friendship. Here are a few tools that can help make that happen.
1. Lanyrd
Lanyrd, a social conference directory, is a great way of finding out where your social media connections will be so that you can arrange to meet up. The site allows you to sign in with Twitter and then see Lanyrd’s list of suggested events you may be interested in. To help you build connections with your Twitter friends, there’s a “from contacts” tab that lets you see all of the events your contacts have said they’ll attend. A glance at this list will show you which events will be more conducive to making more in-person connections.
Next to each conference or event, Lanyrd offers two main buttons: “Attend,” to signify you’ll be in attendance, and “track,” to bookmark an event and keep tabs on it.
2. LinkedIn
While it’s not too uncommon for a Twitter user to follow thousands of other users, social media practitioners tend to be more selective on LinkedIn and Facebook. Inviting a Twitter acquaintance to connect on LinkedIn or Facebook is often seen as a move towards a more formal relationship.
“I often ask fellow #LikeableChat participants to [join me on LinkedIn] after we chat. It solidifies the connection,” says Valerie Pritchard, a research coordinator and writer at social media marketing firm, Likeable.
For many, LinkedIn is an incredibly useful tool for building and maintaining professional relationships, providing access to plenty of information about someone, such as shared alma maters, mutual connections, and similarities in work histories, leading to opportunities for bonding.
3. Banjo
Banjo is one of the fastest growing mobile platforms used to maintain and develop in-person connections. In April, the service announced it had slightly more than 500,000 monthly active users, with total membership hitting 900,000.
Banjo can find your connections across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and it alerts you when your contacts are within a geographic interval of your choosing. This makes it incredibly easy to arrange spur-of-the-moment meetings with online acquaintances.
Banjo is also great if you’re planning a visit to a place where you don’t have many friends. You simply tell Banjo where you plan to be, and it will load a map indicating where your online friends (and other Banjo users) are in the vicinity.
4. Sonar
Similar to Banjo, Sonar is a mobile app that lets you check in to physical locations and know when your social media contacts are at the same venue or nearby. One key feature of Sonar is letting you know when your friends’ friends are nearby as well, revealing connections you might not have otherwise made. With Sonar, it’s not uncommon to check in to a busy venue such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and find someone with four Facebook friends, two LinkedIn connections, and dozens of Twitter followers in common.
Sonar usage is particularly heavy in fields such as digital marketing and among communities such as parenting bloggers, in which people usually form strong connections online before ever meeting in real life. During conferences where these communities come together in person, Sonar is very useful in making sure users don’t miss the people they really want to meet.
5. Meetup
Of course, going to a meetup is a great way to meet some of your online friends in real life. You can do this by setting up an account on Meetup.com, and linking it to your Facebook account so you can see where your friends will be. You can flesh out your profile with specific interests, which lets Meetup improve the meetups that it suggests to you, or you can simply search by keyword. Meetups are organized for all sorts of interests from politics to botany.
Of course, Meetup.com isn’t the only way to strengthen relationships made online. Google Groups is a very useful choice when it comes to organizing a tight-knit community and planning in-person meetings.
What’s your favorite way to turn your social media connections into actual in-person friends? Have your say in the comments below.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, IsaacLKoval
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What ever happened to meeting people at Church or at Clubs or the Movies or the beach or someplace not in cyberspace???
Eric Quit
A Electronic Cigarette
http://AElectronicCigarette.com
The meeting venues you listed are still viable. Social Media and Social Networks have just added another layer/option to making connections with people. Don’t forget that the younger generation [5yrs old to 20yrs old] is growing up with mobile phones, Facebook, internet, etc. They are technologically savvy and when they get home from school or when they have a free moment during school, what are they doing…..texting, updating their FB page, etc.
It is what it is – the future looks even more digitized than it is now. There’s an article in Social Media Today about the fact that even seniors are using Social Media more than ever.
Steve Kavetsky
Co-Founder/Pres.
AgooBiz // The Social Commerce Network
“WE work greater than me”
[http://www.AgooBiz.com]
@AgooBiz
Great article! These are very helpful tools especially in building professional relationships.
Everyone’s attention is on their mobile phones, and people these days find it weird to just approach people. So why not try starting conversations with fellow foursquare users who have checkedin the same establishment, via a mobileapp like Jabberly? Chances are there are also people like you who are interested in meeting new people!
a RT of @tedrubin said: “Relationships are the new currency. Honor them, invest in them, & build emotional connections.” Emotional connections : that’s the key word . Peolple look for living true experiences. Personally I am enthusiastic of Letslunch in Italy and Sumazi in USA.
Alessandro Avagliano
Italy
It is great that there are Social Networks stressing real-life, physical relationship building. As much as WE all use Social Media, the internet, our tablets & laptops, WE should not forget to preserve and develop non-digital relationships. Virtual relationships should not be the only interactions WE have with other people.
By the way, I remember when Meetup.com was just starting out as early as 2002 or 2003. It’s inspiring to see startups keeping their nose to the grind stone and making it. Wishing them continued success.
Thanks Jeremy – Great Article.
Steve Kavetsky
Co-Founder/Pres.
AgooBiz // The Social Commerce Network [ http://www.AgooBiz.com ]
“WE work greater than me”
@AgooBiz
If this is a topic that interests you (as I assume it does because you are reading it!), I suggest checking out the book “Who’s in Your Orbit? Beyond Facebook – Creating Relationships that Matter” by Mike Muhney and Max J. Pucher. It’s a great read for anyone wanting to build professional and personal relationships in today’s social media driven world! Check out the book here: http://www.whosinyourorbit.com/
Hi Jeremy,
Great article!
Very interesting research from Keller and Fray; but not surprising. We see that today’s web is usually the place for a quick communication. Most social media sites today cover the superficial grounds of communications, leaving deep connections out of the map. Yes, social media is powerful, no question about it; but there is a lot of maket opportunity for innovation. I am currently involved with iKONVERSE, a social platform that addresses those conversations that are not happening on the web by facilitating purposeful connections between online users. The company did some research on the unmet needs of social media users and the results give a great insight on the lack of substantial conversations online. thttp://bit.ly/MjfXrv
Hey Jeremy,
I have personally used Lanyard and found it to be very helpful with not only making real-life connections but also finding new and interesting conferences.
Great post.
-Drew
Wait until ark.com goes into beta so you can do it all on one site.
i dont think using apps to meet ur online frnds is the best idea…it may seem a bit odd to ur online frnd…if u build a good relationship online it will happen automatically…like
:hey, i m going 2 the science fair 2morrow
:u know what..i was wondering the same..may be we could meet there
:that sounds fine