What Does Your Social Strategy Look Like?
How do you approach you groups of friends? How do they seem to engage you? Is it the best situation for all parties involved? Who do you mix and mingle with? Is there two people or groups you try to keep apart?
These are all questions any young professional considers as they go about planning meetings, social events and most interactions. However, do you actually plan your interactions at a higher level? I am sure most people don’t consciously think out what their social strategy is for their life but, it can add serious value for anyone with little effort.
Consider Your Social Circles
By considering how your groups of friends, co-workers and other social circles interact, you can plan the areas that can add the most value through increase relationship strength, group member knowledge and the number of new people you interact with.
I find my best experiences come from introducing different groups together. Now, for some groups this could be awkward but, by using your basic knowledge of your friends you can make the connections between circles that strengthen your existing relationships and finding new ones.
Draw Your Interactions
The diagram on the right illustrates this concept by representing each sample group of friends. Now this could be even better in 3D with multiple groups intersecting in multiple demensions but, I decided to keep it 2D so anyone could draw it. The arrows illustrate where the person drawing the diagram would like to expand intersections, introduce friends and build more relationships. It definitely helped me visualize how I am interacting and where I could do better.
How do you plan social interactions? Are there strategies you use? Diagramming or visualization techniques? Please share them in the comments.
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Really interesting one. I personally don’t map them, but products like xobni (www.xobni.com) are really cool passive social networks. I think these will be huge.
Diagramming your social circles is a great way to start thinking about how to expand them.
Another tool designed to improve your networking strategy is UpMo.com’s free Network Readiness Evaluator. It’s a 5-minute questionnaire that gives you a personalized “state of your network” report. The report contains suggestions based on your preferred networking style (not everyone likes networking events, right?).