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Image by Hugh MacLeod
As you listen into other people’s online conversations, pay attention to the difference in their communication styles. Chances are the people you find most engaging will be doing some or all of the following:
In short, they will be doing all the things that no doubt make them engaging and popular in off-line conversations.
The annoying people, on the other hand, are likely to be:
In short, they come across as the kind of people you dread getting ‘stuck with’ at a party. And the sad thing is, they may well be perfectly nice people in real life. For some reason, when they get behind a keyboard they seem to think they have to be ‘selling themselves’ or (shudder) ‘building their personal brand’.
No prizes for guessing which route you should take.
It can be a tricky balancing act — on the one hand, you want to come across as human and approachable. On the other hand, you don’t want to come across as an egomaniac by talking about yourself too much.
If you value your privacy, remember it’s perfectly okay not to share every detail of your life online. Personally, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to know very much about my daily life, so I don’t say much about it online.
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