If you communicate with your friends via the web on a regular basis, then you should know there are some simple things you can do to make those conversations even more interesting and lively. Here are five ways to spice up your online conversations:
Video chat. These days, it doesn’t cost a lot of money, or require a lot of expensive special equipment, to use video chat. As a matter of fact, many computers have cameras built in to them (if yours doesn’t, you can purchase a webcam for less than twenty dollars), and there are a number of video chat platforms that are actually free to use (Skype and TinyChat are two of the most popular). If you have friends and loved ones that you don’t get to see very often, then having video chat sessions is the closest thing to having a face to face conversation with them.
Send images. It is very easy to send images back and forth in most of the online conversation platforms available to you. Like the old saying goes, sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Therefore, images can go a long way in revving up your online conversations.
Special symbols. Special symbols are anything outside of the standard numbers, letter, and symbols (&, *, $, %, etc.) that you find on your keyboard. They include things like musical notes, hearts, pointing fingers, the copyright symbol, and much, much more. Although you can learn how to create some of these special symbols by memorizing the Unicode character set, that would be quite a long and tedious task. There are a number of apps that make it super easy to insert a wide array of special symbols into your online conversations, whether you are posting on Twitter or chatting on Facebook. Explore options like FBSym, TwitterKeys, Typelt, and CopyPasteCharacter to find what works best for you.
Emoticons. More than just cute little smiley codes, emoticons can actually go a long way to add emotional impact to your online conversations. They are especially useful if you are being sarcastic, humorous, or ironic, or if your conversation is speckled with implications that aren’t so obvious. Even more, emoticons are perfect for when you are overcome with emotion (or giggles) and have no words.
Send links. If you are web surfing while carrying on an online conversation, you can involve the other party by sending links to the web pages you are exploring. For example, if you are watching a video to one of your favorite songs on Youtube, you can send that link to your conversation partner, who can watch the video along with you.
As you can see, online conversations can be a lot of fun when you make the best use of your resources. Use these creative and fun ideas to spice up your Internet socializing.
About the Author: Lashon Paone is a graphic designer who loves creating his own emoticons and other online graphics. He stresses the importance of not letting online communications overshadow real life interaction.
