"Single", "Married", "In a Relationship", "It's Complicated". Aren't all relationships complicated? Brand and identity are extremely powerful driving forces in todays globalized, tech-savvy world. Whom one associate yourself with, what your relationship status is, and how strong your relationships all effect one's (businesses included) "brand". When a person is "single" or "in a relationship", there are certain expectations and assumptions of that person by their followers. While there is no real set of rules of how one must act socially when single or in a relationship, many would probably agree that there are different levels of appropriate web-based interactions depending on the status. I have personally had social media cause issues in romantic relationships as well as casual relationships. When one's identity is on display, one are vulnerable; issues that used to be kept more personal or secretive in the "old" days, now have become everyones' business. The more one keeps personal information out of the public's eye, the more personal power and usually respect one retains.For businesses it is a little different, but nonetheless tricky as well. I am in charge of all social media platforms for my company, which is a DBA of a large corporation, which means we do not go by the same name. I try to make our company seem as personable to our followers as I can, especially since we are a small company and already have a reputation of being warm and inviting. At the same time, there are certain limitations to follow. Because my company offers more services than products, most of our services involve working with many other businesses, such as Realtors. Many of these Realtors work for different companies and sometimes have rivalries. Therefore, I cannot over display our relationships or make it seem like we have any sort of favoritism. I also have to be careful not to stray too much from our corporate office's brand image, or to make relationships with those they would not approve of. However, being a small office, in a small town, offering limited services, our followers do not try to connect back with us very much. We are mostly for informational use.
My roommate also has relationship issues with her job, that she has just enlightened me on. She works for an online boutique. A major factor for this industry is fashion bloggers. These bloggers will wear clothing from stores and link to them. However, sometimes bloggers have loyalties to certain stores, and some bloggers are competitive with other bloggers. So for business networking socially, I'd say keep it casual.
When it comes down to it, whether promoting oneself or one's business, who ever is following wants to feel connected. A follower does not want to feel like they do not exist or are not acknowledged. Just like a relationship outside of cyberspace, the connection needs nurturing, support, and attention. And I believe a huge aspect to a prosperous relationship is honesty, which I especially recommend for business.
Some Interesting Statistics I found:
Match.com and Chadwick Martin Bailey 2009 - 2010 Studies: Recent Trends: Online Dating
Marriage Survey:
• 17% of couples married in the last 3 years, or 1 in 6, met each other on an online dating site.
(Table 1)
• In the last year, more than twice as many marriages occurred between people who met on an
online dating site than met in bars, at clubs and other social events combined. (Table 1)
• Approximately twice as many recently married couples met on Match.com than the site that
ranked second. (Table 2)
Online Dating Survey:
• Match.com has led to more than twice as many dates (Table 3) and twice as many relationships
(Table 4) as the site that ranked second.
General Survey
• 1 out of 5 single people have dated someone they met on an online dating site. (Table 5)
• 1 out of 5 people in a new committed relationship (including marriage) met their significant
other on an online dating site.
