Up your social anté

5 effective communication tips will help you become more sociable

Applicable everywhere, if you want to master the art of holding multiple people's attention at the same time or change yourself into an extrovert or expand your circle with time, here's how to go about it:

Tap into a network of like-minded people: Joining a local co-ed soccer league or a nearby running or open-water swim club of your choice is a great way to be active in a social setting without putting in extra efforts to the activity.

Find a self-learning technology and use it to bring out the best in your current circle: The current circle can be your lab to experiment with your fresh learning. Your self-learning communications apps can be used anywhere and everywhere and can prove as flexible as per your schedule.

Be an expert on any subject and show it off to people around you: A great way to expand your social circle is to connect to someone with your knowledge. This seems to be an effective way to participate in a conversation in a large group. You never know, people might find you interesting and people would love to know such people.

Practice whenever you can and wherever you can: If you can explore interactions with different kind of people, it can help you get different flavors of interaction. You can choose opening nights, galas, cultural events, seminars, talks and even specific networking events for your venture.

Stick to basics: Never forget your basics like listen to others, don't be a complainer, stay in touch, smile and so on. If you don't remember, watch YouTube videos to update yourself.

Start with small talks: If stepping out for a party or spending time in a crowd seems challenging, start with small talk. Take baby steps with getting into a conversation, participate in healthy discussions.

Shut that distraction: Most of the time we are so much on our phone, iPad, TV, and radio that we can lose the connection we have with true conversations. To get involved in a social conversation we really need to put that distraction away so that you can truly participate and be engaged with the people you are with.

With the help of these factors, if we can learn and push ourselves, it can greatly benefit our interactions with other people. If we can improve our communication skills with these interactions, we can further improve our social life.

(The writers Arshan Vakil is Founder and CEO, Kings Learning and Neha Bagaria is Founder and CEO, JobsForHer)