If you’re a professional who thoughtfully communicates or markets for a company or an individual by, among other things, participating enthusiastically and fastidious in social media related activities, then you are a social communicator.

Like many in the field, you possess a number of qualities that make you such an effective communicator. However, your effectiveness as a social communicator can be very much attributed to the following traits, which I believe are the things that make a modern social communicator.

A modern social communicator is brief

Nowhere is the need for a social communicator to be brief more apparent than on Twitter, whose 140-character limit has pushed every single user to be pretty concise with what we are sharing and make it loaded with substance at the same time.

While it’s true that not all forms of expression have to be that brief, the need for brevity—even in rather lengthy discourses—is even more important in a world full of social media users with increasingly short attention spans. These users need content that is easily discerned and digested, or they will simply skip what you have to offer and move on.

A modern social communicator is selective

What good are tens of thousands of followers on social media if you can barely get no more than five of them to react to your posts or tweets with a comment or a repost/retweet? Social media marketing is not just about building long lists that often prove to be very hard to manage.

If you’re a good social media communicator, you understand the need for quality over quantity, and should therefore be selective with how and whom you share. Most if not all good social communicators are known to be quite picky when it comes to people they build relationships with. They don’t just build lists for the sake of networking.

A modern social communicator is visible

By visible, we mean social communicators who actually engage their audience on social media. A good social communicator is always ready to dialogue with people, but it’s more than just talking to them or expressing your own thoughts about any matter at hand.

A visible social communicator offers support without expecting any kind of reward or prize in return. When users need advice on anything, a social communicator gives unbiased recommendations. This type of visible interaction online is most apparent in Twitter chats. When social communicators are that visible, they are in effect winning the trust and confidence of their audience.

A modern social communicator is disposed to serendipity

Let us explore that statement a bit. If there’s one thing in life that’s more wonderful than getting compliments or sentiments of appreciation for what you do or have accomplished, it has to be getting compliments or expressions of appreciation for what you do or have accomplished in the most unexpected and unassuming ways. Running into a compliment by serendipity, without you expecting it, is one of the most delightful experiences a person can have.

How does that tie in with a good modern social communicator? When a social communicator strives for consistency and excellence when in the field of communications practice, he/she is basically increases the chances of serendipitous compliments from just about anyone, and all of them would be totally uncontrived. For a modern social communicator to always feel good about his/her work, aiming for excellence at every turn is absolutely a good thing to practice.

If you have more ideas on what makes a good social communicator, feel free to hit the comments.