There is one thing people find annoying, out of many others, that has been happening in recent times. People do not know how to chat with someone for the first time on social media. They lack the etiquette on how to do that.
Every day, we have to interact with people through different means, either on social media or offline.
However, it is one thing to interact with people, and it is another thing to come correct while you are at it.
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You must have seen people ranting on social media about how people have approached them for the first time. It is even worse that these people who don’t chat them up properly often get upset when they get corrected.
You see these defaulters arguing and trying to defend their lack of manners. There are ways to chat people up, especially if you are doing it for the first time.
One of the things your first approach to someone on social media should accomplish is that your intentions should be stated such that the recipient understands why you are in his or her DM.
People are illiterate when it comes to this etiquette. They do not just know what to do, they enter your DM and say “hi” or they start to act mysterious, they start to do a guessing game and try to waste your time.
Sometimes, you want to play around, and you do not want to reveal yourself, that’s understandable depending on your reasons.
However, these are 4 sure ways to get into a formal conversation with anybody.
1. Salutation
Say your greetings if you are chatting with someone for the first time on social media. Do not just say things like “Hi, hello, Hey, what’s up?” No, that is not appropriate. You cannot afford to do the salutation casually like they are some random friends who you are overfamiliar with.
2. Explain how you got their contact
It could be that you are chatting them up on WhatsApp or other social media platforms. Regardless of which platform you are chatting them up on, as long as it is for the first time on social media, then you need to immediately tell them where you got their contact from after you have said your greetings. You need to explain the place or channel through which you got access to them, especially if it’s not a public space like Twitter, Instagram and the likes.
If it is someone who gave you their contact, do well to mention it. If it is that you got their number from a conference you once attended, speak up and let them know.
3. Your intention
When you want to chat with someone for the first time, you need to state your intentions. This explains why you are reaching out in the first place. It allows the recipient to know why you are chatting them up. It helps them to know how to address you and above all, it saves you both the time that could have been wasted while going back and forth.
After the salutation and stating how you got their contact, it is important to state the primary reason for reaching out to them in the first place. Don’t try to get familiar or act too casual and relaxed so that you start focusing on the things that don’t matter while leaving out the most important things.
4. State other intentions
If you are chatting with someone on social media for the first time, you could also state other intentions that you have in mind if you have any. However, this is not giving you the license to act inappropriately in this regard and blow up any chance that you could probably have with such a person. If you would like them to save your contact, also let them know. Communicate clearly.
Above all, no one can survive in isolation. The world is chaotic already. Make things easy by interacting with people the right way, especially those that you are interacting with for the first time. Imagine someone coming to you with a request or anything, and they are stressing you out because they do not know how to apply the basic rules of communication.
The worst part of a situation like this is that these people tend to get angry when you try to caution them. Only a few people out of a hundred are often willing to take corrections and fix them up when they are corrected. People like this are hardly easy to come by every other day. Do better when you have done poorly, and you’ve been corrected.
