How to communicate in social networks

Post Reply New Topic

I've had an experience of registering in a social network (such as facebook). After that I've added some colleagues to my friends lists. Then some time passed and I've changed jobs. I still have these colleagues from different jobs added in my network.

The question is - how do I communicate with them? Should I write something to them? And what are the things I could write?
I didn't talk to most of them for several years, sometimes for 7-8 years. Are they offended already?

I understand that keeping relationships is good for my career. People whom I know may help with finding other jobs or if I add colleagues from my current job it may help me establish relationships at work.

So what do people write to each other in social networks? How often? Do you have a system for doing it? What do you know about NT people doing it?
How do you keep conversations? On what topics?
Does it really help in some ways or is it a bad idea?

I see that many people write birthday greetings to their friends in social networks. I also have problems with congratulations with bithdays. I do not know how to do it, I get scared and I just don't call/write, and then people are offended. I do not know what to say except for "Happy birthday, I wish you this this and this". I feel stupid doing this.

If you haven't been in contact with someone in more than a year, then you are not really connected with them any more. Just delete them from your contact list, unless you really want to get in touch with them again. Such "lost" contacts aren't worth anything as a social network, because they aren't part of your network if you let more than a year go by between contacts. You can always keep them in an archived list, while deleting them from the current list, that way you still have the contact if you should ever change your mind. Remember though, once all that time has gone by, people have moved, changed phone numbers, and changed email and FB addresses, so many of these unused contacts are out of date anyway. So just archive them and only use the current ones.

As to what to talk about, how about shared interests? Also an occasional update on major changes in your life--married, moved, baby, new job, etc. But try to keep negative, or depressing news out of any communications. Only psych docs and therapists want to have such stuff dumped on them. So keep it positive. There are occasional exceptions, like if someone's kid needs a transplant, or they need help paying for the kid's cancer treatments, etc., but it has to be something serious like that, where there is stuff people can actually do to help, like have bake sales, garage sales, etc., to raise money.

If you don't have any shared interests, or points of connection. like being co-workers, or family, etc., then why have them on your contact list at all? You wouldn't put the paperboy on your social site contact list unless he was a relative or personal friend, now would you? Just knowing someone is not reason enough to put them on the list. You need to have some sort of relationship to them, such as work, interests, family, etc. Then they have a reason to be on your list, and then you should be able to find things to talk about.

Hope that helps.

Are there maybe phrases that I could use to make up with them?



This is the problem that I have no shared interests or points of connection.
I just added them. I saw others at work adding each other, so I added people also. But how do I start conversations with them?
Should I ask them what are their interests?
I have some people on my list whom I just saw several times (like people from other departments whom I recognized there). I heard that it is good to have connections to people from different departments to build networks and to know gossip or something like that. But I just don't know how to break the ice or how to ask about things. What phrases I might say or what letters I might write?
Please?

my advice, from someone with a low number of fb friends, i would start off with a simple hello, how are you? if you feel the need to explain your absence in recent years, well i honestly dont know how i would type it either. But if they live nearby, see if they want to meet up sometime face to face. If they respond in an interested, friendly, casual manner, then proceed as you see fit. If they dont respond for awhile or just ignore you, i think you really have to consider what exactly is your connection to these people. but lets not BS ourselves, the typical fb user has at least 500 plus friends. If you happen to have 500 plus friends, then well thats awesome for an aspie, lol. However since you say you havent talked to most of them for as long as 7-8 years, i suspect that your online friendship with these people is not very strong or active either.

majority of social networking posts are about their kids, their babies, their spouses, their jobs, and they post pictures about where they are or where they are going and they want you to "like" it. not to forget that they invite you to play games online (even though they really dont care if you play or not). the reality is social networking online is truly just "friend collecting" like friends are baseball cards or something. you might have known these people at one time, etc ,etc but all they are really interested in is increasing their friend count number and have all the attention on them, and their kids, their babies, their spouses, their hobbies, their vacations, their new car, etc, etc, etc. If you feel like you must or choose to keep contact with these friends, I would simply "like" everything they post and make a witty, cool, calm, "normal" comment about such post. hopefully, they will return the "like" to you whenever you post something cool, interesting, fun, positive, awesome, or just plain boring standard post BS.

aspic's are usually snubbed and ignored on FB
i use FB sparingly

The easiest way to manage relationships on social networks is to comment and "like" (or retweet/reblog/whatever) what other people post. People like being appreciated and taken into consideration, right? Anyway, I do that only if I do have a reason to. And I never accept any App request.

I personally don't delete anyone I know in person who is already in my friend list. I did it only when I had accepted friendship by mistake. I usually accept if it is a person I know (except arch-enemies and the like), and put them in limited profile if I believe it's better to keep the distance (eg. relatives, higher level co-workers, co-workers I can't really stand, etc.). On the other hand, I don't send friend requests to people unless I am really interested in them.

If it is an old co-workers, you can just write a message thanking them, and asking them if they want to connect on LinkedIn or other professional social networks, which is mostly a good thing.

Thank you! It looks as it's a great idea. To me it seems to be a very reasonable reason, and very natural.

For birthdays, I just write "Happy Birthday." If they are someone I'm close to; I might do "Happy Birthday " That's usually what I get on my birthday.

I don't delete people unless they really piss me off.

Try to avoid negative statuses as routine. Now it's ok to post from time to time if your having a really bad day; or if something bad happens like death, illness, etc.

The nice thing about FB and such is they are asynchronous communication systems. If you message person X, they may not respond for a few hours, and when they message you, you don't have to respond right away either. I find it relaxing because I can think about what I'm saying.