Some of the most common ideas about expanding your electronic and online identity include:

1. Plan what you want to say carefully so that you do not waste the attention of your audience.
2. Consider who you are or want to be so that you have a consistent identity on social media and not a variety of personalities; multiple images or identities do not advance your students’ and colleagues’ impressions of you.
3. Select your social-media voice. Will it be ironic? Humorous? Straightforward?
4. Pick a topic or a theme and stay with it so that people know what you are interested in and will come to your social-media sites to learn something new. You cannot be everything to everyone; trying to do so only blurs your professional identity on social media and will diminish the number of persons who want to connect with you.
5. Use tools carefully. Pick the software programs that you want to be involved with and use them regularly. Doing a little on many sites will not build your audience of followers. Do you want to blog, post pictures on Pinterest, expand your use of Facebook or try Foursquare?
6. Ask questions that are fun and easy to answer or provide factoids that intrigue your current and future followers. These provocative statistics or questions make your social-media site interesting and will encourage your followers to come back again and again.
7. Keep it simple and fun so that people want to read your comments, and they can do so quickly and easily.
8. Post a poll, quotes and interesting stories or information. Become a resource for your audience by suggesting important ideas and factoids; that pattern builds continuing interest in your audience about what you have to say.
9. Respond humanly and promptly to any comments, requests for information and contributions to your site or blog. Being present on social media takes time, but responding individually will increase the number of people who want to and will connect with you electronically.
10. Share information that you find. It can be from other sources (give them credit) or something that you write and want to share. Since people are fascinated with new information, provide it and you will watch the number of your followers grow.

All of these suggestions are ways to build your online community and enhance your reputation. Being successful in this way, however, does not really mean you are connected to what you are feeling and thinking, and it often means that you will have superficial conversations with some people and few significant or serious conversations.

In fact, some of the current research indicates that many people who use a lot of social media conduct about 55 conversations a week, most of them through texting and not even using a human voice. They send quick, brief, not very significant statements, but don’t have serious or extended conversations. Ironically, often those conversations include people who individuals live with or see in person; however, many people text their families and friends rather than have real conversations in person!

Building Real Connections
Although most of us use social media in one form or another, some of us miss the real conversations that include voices, body language, pauses between responses and continuous connection. In case some of you have forgotten how to keep those conversations going or if you need to teach your students and children how to reestablish meaningful conversations and not 140-character Tweets or short texting salvos, I encourage you to ROARR. The acronym stands for the steps to establish or build a real connection with another human being, whether that person is new to you or someone you have known for a long time.

Remain in the moment. When most of us are with another person and conducting a voice-managed conversation—what an irony that we need to call it voice managed, rather than text-managed, conversation—we focus on the present moment and watching, listening to and responding to the person in front of us. Try spending more time with persons and using all the forms of verbal and nonverbal communication available to you. You might be surprised with what you learn about the other person and yourself.

Open yourself to the experience. Talking with another person includes focusing on that person and what he or she wants to communicate rather than what we want to say. It is a different focus than texting statements. It means really listening to others and not just focusing on short, terse statements.

Actively engage your audience. Ask questions; inquire about the experience or thoughts of the person in front of you. Be curious, see where the questions go and how they open a deeper connection with the person, and follow your instincts and reactions. This process will expand your appreciation of the other person and broaden your real connection with others.

Reflect on the connection being made. Consider the best ways to deepen the relationship with this person, what you are learning from this conversation and how it provides new insights and new opportunities for you and the other person.

Relax and give yourself a break. Although you have worked hard to provide interesting information, have been a good online colleague and have not had many in-person conversations, don’t punish yourself that you have not been more in the moment with persons. Recognize that other pressures may have led you to text rather than listen and talk. Start to focus, this summer, on more real conversations and communication.

Having real conversations and deepening your connections with people takes skill and the will to do it, but it produces new energy and excitement as you discover the pleasure and joys of learning more about other people and having other persons really listen to you. Give up the “could have, would have, should have” statements and enjoy what you do have and what you can do. Good luck!

Summary
Thank you for reading this column on building and expanding both your online connections and your real connections with other persons.

I hope that the summer brings you new opportunities for growth, relaxation and renewal. In September, we will talk about teaching again this fall, with a focus on different types of paper assignments that we can consider using with our students.

If you have comments about this topic or suggestions for others, send them to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and I will include them in future Mayo’s Clinics.

Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT, is a clinical professor at New York University and a frequent presenter at CAFÉ events nationwide.

Photo: Fred Mayo set the stage for the 2012 CAFÉ Leadership Conference at The Culinary Institute of America-San Antonio in June by speaking on “Connections.” Courtesy of Brent T. Frei.