Welcome Wednesday: How do you keep in touch with your friends?

[Dave LIAO]

It's time for another Welcome Wednesday post, a chance for you to participate on the Atlassian Community forums on topics that aren't necessarily about Atlassian tools. 🙃 (See past Welcome Wednesdays here.)

This came up in conversation lately: How do you keep your network informed on what you're up to?

I used to email my network annually - I even went through the effort to email everyone in my address book individually, instead of a bulk send.

Now, I'm considering a mix of solutions:

1. Posting regular updates to Bluesky (more frequent, less detailed posts)
2. Posting regular updates to Substack (less frequent, and more detailed blog entries)

What about you? How do you keep everyone in the loop so they know what you're doing?

[carolyn french]

That's a really good question and even harder when you don't want to use social media to do this. I love that you emailed folks individually, that's the extra mile to make them feel special. Sometimes I'll send snail mail if I feel like it. A lot of people use an end of the year or Christmas card to summarize what they've been up to, and those are easy to order with a few clicks now (although I don't do this, I enjoy when I receive others).

Substack is a nice way especially if you have musings from your travels. I did blogspot back in the day and it was also fun to write.

In short, I don't have a good way either, let me know if you make a breakthrough.

[Dave LIAO]

I think the real answer will be where my audience lives. And the audience probably has no idea, either!

Watch me migrate my Tumblr to TikTok. 🥲

[Amanda Barber]

Professionally, I'm definitely still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, so I don't feel like there's been much to update folks on, lol. I do try to engage on LinkedIn a few times a week (daily for their games, haha!) 

Personally, I mostly post to Instagram these days for travel and kid pictures - anything kid-related, I auto-share to Facebook, too, since that's where most family will see my content. I've definitely scaled way back on sharing much as my kids have gotten older (and one even has their own account, and plenty of opinions on what I share about them!) 

Other than that, I definitely favor in-person connection with close friends and texting/messaging for important updates.

[Dave LIAO]

@Amanda Barber - I've managed to resist clicking any of the LinkedIn games links for this long, imagine if I started! 😂

I wish Facebook still actually presented my updates to my connections. I think the algorithm deprioritized me - not only in preference to brands and ads - since I posted WAY less after 2020. I could always re-open my Facebook to experiment...

[Amanda Barber]

I managed to stumble on the "friends" tab one day in the Facebook app and was like ooooh, there's all my actual "friends" - it was like turning over a rock, lol. LinkedIn games are the best!!

[Anne Saunders]

...poorly? I'm here for ideas. 😅

I am horrible at self-promotion, and I have the lack of object permanence problem that means when something isn't pretty much in front of me, I'm not thinking about it. 

I was just accepted to the Atlassian Champions program, and I haven't even been able to compose the LinkedIn post I know I should probably make. 

[Dave LIAO]

@Anne Saunders - You can do it! If you haven't posted yet, share a link to your LinkedIn post link here?

Assuming it's public, that is!

[Anne Saunders]

I ended up dodging the introductory post about me and just posted about the community and our first event. 😅

[Kristin Lyons]

I try to check in with everyone in my network randomly via text message or social media but I love the idea of an email! It seems more personalized and takes extra effort that people might appreciate :) 

[Matt Doar]

Is it with friends or my network? Network sounds like work, which has some overlap with friends.

Random word of mouth, lunch meetings, coffee and a few LinkedIn posts. 

[Barbara Szczesniak]

I never saw the point of Facebook et al because I thought that the people who needed to know the things I might put there would know because I talked to them. If we haven't spoken or otherwise interacted with someone in the last 6 months (or 5 years), we are obviously not that close anymore.

With my friend group, we see each other at least weekly, but we also have a few text groups with different combinations of people, depending on who needs the information, who we want to complain about, or who agrees with our politics 😀.

My 5 siblings and I also have a text group to share with each other.