Social Media or Face to Face Communication

A warm handshake, engaging conversation and
getting to know customers and prospects on an
individual level can play an important role in
forming stronger, more meaningful and
profitable business relationships.
We all seem to live and breathe social media.
Take that away for just two days, and we’re
likely to suffer some serious withdrawal
symptoms – ok, so perhaps that’s an
exaggeration. If you were to meet someone on
the street and asked for his contact
information, the likely response would
probably be: Are you on Facebook? Are you
on LinkedIn? And don’t be surprised if you get
directed to some other social networking site
that you’ve never even heard of. That’s right,
technology is evolving by the minute as we
speak!
This is all well and good but we have to ask –
in today’s tech-savvy world, are we losing our
sense of human voice and touch? Is social
media killing the art of personal
communication, and how is it affecting our
everyday business?
Face-to-face discussions are the foundation of
human communication; once established, it
allows us to build trust, clearly articulate our
ideas and minimize misunderstanding.
However, for many of us, face-to-face
communication seems to be a dying art –
replaced by text messaging, e-mails, and social
media. Human communication and interactions
are shaped by available technologies.
Is technology helping or hindering our ability
to spread messages? Perhaps, it isn’t doing
either. A more plausible answer is that it is
essentially transforming traditional methods
and revolutionizing the way we communicate
with one another. In the communications
arena, specifically public relations, media,
advertising and marketing, we have to stay
relevant, informed, and up-to-date on the
newest communication channels and
incorporate them into our range of capability
offerings.
To build meaningful connections between
people, we need to let technology enhance our
communication, rather than dictate...