EXERCISE 4.3

Emotional Expression

Expressing Emotions in Social Media

Purpose

To allow participants to explore the effectiveness of their emotional communications when using social media.

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30 minutes

Participants explore how they use emotions in the social media formats they use, discuss the benefits of and lost opportunities from their approaches, and then make a commitment to improve their emotional communication.

Outcomes

• Build awareness of how people communicate emotions in social media interactions
• Recognize where change would be valuable

Audience

• Intact teams
• Unaffiliated group
• Individual working with a coach

Facilitator Competencies

Easy

Materials

• Expressing Emotions in Social Media Handout
• Pens

Time Matrix

Activity	Estimated Time
Participants fill in handout	10 minutes
Discuss what they wrote in handout	10 minutes
Commit to enhanced strategies	10 minutes
Total Time	30 minutes

Instructions

1. Give everyone the handout and a pen. Ask all participants to fill in the handout so that they:

• Make a list of the social media formats they use
• Write how they express emotions in each of the formats
• Candidly notice when the use of emotions works well and when it doesn’t work well by leaving important information out or actually getting them in trouble.

For example, you could tell your participants:

“Imagine you have an important dinner date; it’s with someone you want to impress about an important topic (or it’s a romantic date). You are so frustrated because your boss kept you late, you are racing out of the building, your date is probably already at the restaurant, and . . .”

In one scenario, you text your date saying “Running late c u soon, maybe 45 minutes.”

In the other scenario, you call your date and give him or her emotional context and say, “Susie, I’m so sorry I’m running late. My boss needed a project from me and I just couldn’t get out. I’m frustrated because I’m so eager to see you. I can get there in about 45 minutes; will that still work for you? Have a drink on me while you wait.”

Now which scenario is likely to produce the best results?

2. Ask participants to reflect on how their engagement does or doesn’t work and what changes they want to make. Get the participants together and ask for comments. Depending on the size of the group, you can ask each person to comment or just gather representative feedback. Invite exploration of what works and what does not work and what changes can be useful. Discuss that nonverbal communication is a big part of human communication and this is always left out of social media interaction. Ask when it would be better to call or go see the person with whom one is communicating rather than using social media.

3. Ask each person to turn to someone next to him or her and make a commitment about ways in which he or she will improve the emotional content of his or her communications.

EXPRESSING EMOTIONS IN SOCIAL MEDIA HANDOUT

Social Media Formats I Use

I express emotions thus:

This works well when:

This does not work when:

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