Social Media gets us closer to our friends. I'm much more likely to participate in activities because I know what's going on.
Even better, it gives us the opportunity to connect with friends that we might not get to see that often, just like yesterday.
I'm sitting on a rock in Central Park, New York City, enjoying the weather and working on my laptop. I log into Facebook and see a comment from one of my best friends, a guy I used to ride motorcycles with through corn fields as a kid.
Turns out, he's commenting about the traffic in New York City, he lives in Minneapolis so I don't get to connect with him that often. I laugh, I dial him up on the phone and say, “You aren't going to believe where I'm at!” and we end up connecting up at this great little bar, George Keeley's in the West End of New York City.
That was a really great conversation and made a great day even better. How many times do you get to connect with friends like that, and you didn't even expect it? It made my flight home much more enjoyable and it makes for a great story.
Fortunately, I caught his comment on Facebook, but there is an even better application you can use to connect with friends, called FourSquare.
Two nights before, I had dinner with John Chow at Carnegie Deli, turns out, another friend of mine from Chicago was dining their at the same time. He noticed I was at Carnegie Deli when he checked in on Four Square, an application that runs on your iPhone or Droid telephone.
So you see, social media is a great tool for connecting with friends and using it for more than just chatting online. It actually strengthens our personal relationships and helps us connect in person.