The Social Relationship Matrix #truStockholm

I’m just back from a great #truStockholm, where I was really impressed with the progress made over the last 12 months by the recruiters involved. At the last #truStockholm, we spent a lot of time talking concept and why adopting social recruiting might be a good idea. This time around, the talk was all around what people were doing, and there’s some great work going on in the region.2/3’ds of the tracks were in Swedish, and that’s great. It shows me that it was very much the locals taking the lead, and like #truParis, that’s how it should be. Whilst I didn’t understand it, the emotion and energy in the conversation didn’t need translating. Thanks to Monster Sverige and Social Honesty for making happen. We are already plotting the next event for September which will involve two countries and a boat in between. Keep your eyes posted!

During the event I ran a track on social relations, and talked about the social matrix I apply. It’s not really rocket science, but it works well for me. Where I’m connected with someone socially gives a good indicator of the strength of our relationship. In simple terms:

Twitter. Where most of my relationships start. Twitter is the intro channel. Follow or following needs no acceptance or invitation. It’s the place where we first say “Hi.” This is where we get acquainted.

LinkedIn. Having exchanged a few tweets and come up on the radar, the LinkedIn invites follow. Were connected. Whilst most of the engagement is on twitter, there’s more of an awareness of the professional profile with some mutual sharing. It’s also the time for adding to Google+ circles, and more mutual sharing. Increasingly, it’s also the time for getting followed on Pinterest.

Facebook. Starting out as a fan, and connecting via the fan page. This might be via the blog or another social place. The Facebook relationship starts as a fan, on a more professional basis with a few likes and shares. The last stage is becoming a friend, and it is the word friend that holds the real significance. This is now a strong relationship, and engagement moves from Twitter to Facebook through comments, likes and shares. Personal contact moves from DM to instant chat on Facebook messaging.

This is not an exact science, but I’ve found it to be quite accurate. The relationship also works backwards. If we become more distant due to a lack of engagement or reason to talk, the channels in which we engage revert backwards to predominantly twitter.

This model provoked quite a lot of conversation about how it can be applied. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts,

Bill