The skills you learn while working with social media can be applied “offline” in the “real world” as well.

Ask anybody who knows what they are talking about what social media is, and their immediate response without missing a beat should be:

Relationships.

Last weekend, suddenly and without warning, my parent’s Qwest dialup internet through MSN had its access numnber dropped.  Calling Qwest to ask about *anything* to do with dial-up was problematic, as they have removed it from all of their tech support scripts.   In addition, once you mention “MSN” the tech people immediately transfer you to MSN, but then at MSN, if you say anything about Qwest, it transfers you back to Qwest.

This happened to me four times in a row over the weekend, so I decided to give it a few days.

So I call back Qwest, hoping to switch them to high speed.   But sure enough, after mentioning MSN, Im back at MSN’s call tree.  So I mention Qwest and get transferred back (without talking to anybody at MSN, it is THAT automated!) and this time I decided to try another approach.

When the tech support woman came on the phone, she mentioned she was calling from Sioux City.  I knew the only chance to get this straightened out was to strike a personal chord with the gal.  So, before I gave her my name, I explained what had happened the previous 5 calls to Qwest, and then I went in for the clincher.

I repeated back to her that I heard she was in Sioux City, and that my aunt worked for the school system there for 44 years.   I said she was retiring this year, so the school district put up billboards all around town about her retiring.  The operater, Deanna, immediately said she had seen the boards on I-29 every day on her way to and from work.   In a short amount of time – I built that relationship.  All of a sudden I was “the billboard person’s nephew.”  I explained the situation, and since I didn’t have my parent’s social security number at the time, Deanna offered to call them back in the morning to verify not only the high speed order I placed, but also how she could bring the long distance charges down!

By leveraging the skills you learn in social media in everyday life, you can get some amazing results.