Online connections develop offline relationships

Is social media making us LESS social?

Though many critics support this notion, I strongly believe the opposite is true. 

Has it changed the way we interact with one another? Definitely.      

Has it completely replaced face-to-face interactions? Absolutely not.                               

I think of social media as a supplement to offline relationships. The importance of personal interactions will never cease to exist, but social media allows for them to flourish in a way they never could before.

This helps us maintain personal relationships with friends, family and former classmates, but it’s also highly relevant to professional connections as well.  Networking relationships have expanded from luncheon conversations to daily online interactions.

Take this for example: At an after-work networking hour you start chatting with another professional in your industry. You do the usual business card exchange and go your separate ways. Before the digital age, you may have developed that relationship through phone calls and lunchtime meetings, but that in-person meeting may have been the last.

But, with social media, that connection does not stop with the initial conversation. You can now carry that in-person connection over to LinkedIn, Twitter or any of your social networks of choice. These channels allow you to keep in touch with others easily and usually more frequently. By sending short messages via Twitter or discovering mutual connections on LinkedIn, you’re able to nurture a relationship that could have been lost.

-- Katie Fanella