3 Tools for Exploring Your Social Networking Relationships

Posted August 9th, 2010 / By Brandon Cox in Web

We live in the adolescence of the internet. In its infancy, it was all about information. In adulthood, the internet will simply be woven into the fabric of our lives as we relate to others in the world around us. Right now, we’re in the awkward growth stage where people are debating whether there is such a thing as a “social media expert.”

In this awkward stage people often become consumed with the tools available and value them over the principles that underly our work. But the underlying principle that makes social media such a vital part of the web is that people naturally long to relate to one another. They long to be deeply known.

Facebook and Twitter provide a means of reaching out and knowing someone. They offer points of access to others – points that didn’t exist before. But how do you explore those contacts more deeply? How do you take the next step beyond a tweet and really mine your established relationships for the kind of data that really connects people?

You can start with tools like these:

Gist

Gist takes the people you’re normally in contact with across the social web and shows you a cross-section of their online activity and an extended profile of them. Get Gist.

Rapportive

Rapportive replaces your Gmail sidebar ads with social web information about the person from whom the email you are reading was sent. It pulls from a variety of sources, shows recent tweets, and gives you a good picture of the person.

Threadsy

Threadsy does several things very well. It pulls together incoming messages from across various networks and puts them into a common inbox. This includes email, mentions, and direct messages. It also provides a networking client alongside the inbox and a sweet email signature to boot.

There are others. In fact, there are more added almost daily. We’re watching a positive trend in that there is a growing focus on building relationships and not just “follower counts.”

What do you use to deepen relationships across the social web?

In addition to serving as Editor of Fuel Your Blogging, Brandon is also a Pastor at Saddleback Church and Online Community Coordinator for Pastors.com. He’s also a web designer, blogger, and church communications consultant. Catch him on his own blog or on Twitter.