Social networking and community engagement technology made easy

We’ve been talking about the importance of creating your own social network in order to connect with your tribe. This has me thinking of other benefits social networks have, as well as has me thinking about some things we can do to grow current relationships, create new ones, and truly to achieve the goals we have set for the New Year. Although it is absolutely critical to utilise your own social network platform to be the centre of the conversation with your community, I think there are two other things to be considered as well: Goal sharing and face time.

When is the last time you sat down and really had a conversation about your goals with an individual or with your organisation? Not just about the organisational goals, but also the different goals of those who help keep your organisation going? What are you doing to help your tribe reach their goals? How are you connecting with others? I believe goal sharing is vital to personal and professional success and I’m certainly not alone.

According to The Change Blog, when you share goals, two things happen:

1. You Become Accountable

If you choose to share your goals with someone you trust, such as a close friend or family member, then this person can help you by regularly checking up on your progress. In effect, you become accountable to this person. This may be some kind of formal arrangement, where you specifically ask another person to check your progress (eg you may want them to ask you how much you weigh on a certain date). It can also be informal, in the sense that if you share certain goals (eg to spend more time with the kids or to start learning a language) these will naturally come up later in conversation.

Even more powerful, though, is the way in which sharing your goals with another person makes you truly accountable to yourself. I have found that although writing down my goals is effective, it does not necessarily make me truly commit to them. When I share a goal with someone else, though, I feel I am making a promise to myself that I will take action and make it happen.

2. You May Receive Help

I have often found that when I have shared a goal with someone else, they have found a way to help me. In particular, my family and friends love to give me books on subjects or hobbies I express an interest in. Or, they introduce me to a contact of theirs who may be able to assist (this has been happening a lot lately with career advice). I should note here that I never directly ask for such help. I think it is just that most people love to help other people. It makes us feel good about ourselves.

So, what if you have personal goals that you may not want to share? It’s always exciting to see new technologies that can help with these types of things. Mashable.com recently shared with its readers about the new platform, MySomeday.com.

My Someday is a unique online, goal-achievement platform which allows you to make goals while giving a step-by-step guide in achieving those goals. It’s definitely something to check out.  My Someday takes the questions of HOW to get somewhere by helping you to actually take action…DO. You could use My Someday as yet another resource.

Sometimes, we set goals thinking we can go it alone, when in reality we NEED others to help us. Have you ever felt so overwhelmed by the thought of an idea or goal that it’s just easier to that idea aside? Sometimes it takes a village to get something done. We ultimately need to connect with the people we have in our lives to help with growth, both personally and professionally, which brings me to my next point.

The importance of the one-on-one connection:

Relationships built both online and off, in the following year can truly impact where you are going as an organisation.  I would suggest taking some time and planning some type of event for the people of your community. With Community Engine’s event promotion technology, not only can you create, promote, and invite users to your event, you can also link your event with a third-party ticketing supplier.  You can also link to third-party social platforms to continue promotion there.

One of the amazing things about creating online relationships is that once you already have a grasp of who people are. You can keep an online relationship at whatever level you want, but understand this: Business in 2010 is about getting personal. It’s about connecting on a deeper level. And if you have goals and plans, get everyone you know involved because it is the collective that can really make things happen.

The bottom line is people need people. Community helps people grow. Community Engine helps you to create that community. One where you can connect, engage, and be responsible to your goals, ideas, or whatever else it is you wish to be held accountable to.

posted by Piers Hogarth-Scott in the category Social Media Social networking
Tags: event promotion, goals, mashable, mysomeday.com, the change blog