The word of the year for 2009, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary:
unfriend.
This says something about our society and the social media we’re all embracing. Relationships of a certain sort are, well, un-doable. Someone can friend or follow you on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, and either person can exit just as easily. Friending and unfriending can be entirely impersonal.
Now, I won’t say crack any cynical jokes about relationships with investors. My observation for the day is simply that we are all looking for real relationships – in our personal lives, business dealings … and our investor relations jobs.
Social media play a role in supporting all of these relational areas of life. But the simple act of friending or following or connecting isn’t much of a relationship. Talking with each other over time using whatever medium, listening, supporting – dare we say, investing time and effort in each other – makes a relationship.
Let’s be social in our investor relations outreach, but let’s build real relationships.
Tags: Facebook, Investor relations, LinkedIn, Social media, Twitter, Unfriend
