Emotional intelligence, EI has a whole lot of psychological mumbo jumbo surrounding it, a search will turn up almost a million articles. So, I’ll simplify all that by saying it is the capability a person has to empathise and then engage with another individual and/or group.
It is the thinking that underpins effective use of social media. We can all figure out how the algorithms work, and the how the interactions play out, but it is EI that creates the engagement.
I get a lot of stuff in my inbox , some, obviously, gets deleted immediately, some I share very selectively across my contacts, some I share with specific people, and some get spread via Twitter, Linkedin, et al. Why? Because what I share, plays a role in how others see me, and I want to be seen differently by different people, and groups of people.
It also varies by platform.
For example, there are a lot of hits on celebrity foibles when reported in online news sources, but they do not get shared much. However, we tend to share the pictures and stories of the tsunami in Japan, or the interesting article we find on a blog.
We humans are social animals, we spend a lot of effort to shape the way others see us, as that will contribute to our acceptability in differing groups and situations, and what and how we communicate is more important in this connected age than ever before.
