Quick Guide to Engagement in 2020

Happy New Year Everyone, I Wish You the Best in 2020!

Its 6 days into the new year, most organisations who closed for the year are back at work, some schools are open and everyone is shaking the holiday season off. We are all back at work, at our hustle or our job search. As we fully commence those, here’s a quick reminder on how to engage online in 2020.

I have seen many contacts do similar posts on here and on many other platforms and its surprising that it still continues to happen. Makes me wonder if people even bother to scroll through the feeds and read posts or it’s a case of open linked-in, head to the Network page, connect, send ‘message’, get no response, rinse, repeat. 

If this is/was you, at some point (hopefully today), you need to measure the effectiveness of your engagements. If it hasn’t been effective (rewarding), then this is a good as any time to change/improve.

You can start by defining the purpose for engaging. Before you reach out to anyone- there has to be a reason for reaching out. Knowing this is the 1st step.

Then you need to realize people are busy, there’s a lot competing for our time; there’s family, work, other pursuits, stress of Lagos living, World news, other Social media platforms, etc. all in the 24 hours space.

Now imagine someone dealing with all of the above, put yourself in his/her shoes and imagine if he/she is likely to respond to your:

Hello

Or

Good morning (or whatever time of the day it is).

Truth is, there’s a minute chance of that message getting a response as against a message that introduces you, what you do and what you need from the connection- now that message has a higher chance of being responded to. It’s not definite that it will get a response; it just has a higher chance of response.

Let’s not get into the- please go through my profile for…….. people.

Remember some of the things outlined above competing with the average person’s time? 5 seconds or less is all the person has unless something in your communication holds their attention.

Let’s stop doing ourselves a disservice, be intentional with your communication. Send messages knowing the reader has just about 5 seconds or so to glance through and move on. Ensure your message is enough to catch their attention in those 5 seconds.

Have a great year! 

Images credit: google.com