Anyone who knows me knows I am a HUGE fan of Facebook and Twitter. I have not only made a ton of great friends but also have found new clients by using both of these tools. I am however very selective of who I allow into my virtual "inner sanctum" of the social networking world.
A huge pet peeve of mine is seeing people with thousands of contacts. You know, just a few thousand of their closest friends right? WRONG! Some people will follow others just to see how many contacts they can rack up. I'm no shrink but my thoughts are these people are dealing with deeply rooted acceptance issues. They had little or no friends as a child and now they're trying to show off how many "contacts/friends" they have now.
Don't get me wrong, there are some out there who are well known successful people who have built up a large following of legitimate contacts who they interact with on a regular basis. That's not what I'm talking about. My gripe is the people who choose quantity over quality.
Here is what the quantity over quality attitude will get you:
Here is what the quantity over quality attitude will get you:
1. Lack of a personal relationship: Let's face it, the purpose of social networking is to build relationships with people for personal or business purposes. If some random person asks you to be their friend or contact and you have no idea what they are about, what are the chances that they will build a personal relationship with you if you are number 4,321 on their contact list?
2. Lowered credibility: If you are building relationships and trust with people and become respected and well liked then people will tell their friends who will want to be your contact. If you are putting out a great message and interacting with your contacts on a regular basis giving them valuable information, services or products, then great! However, if you simply collect names and do nothing with them or constantly send out sales pitches, people will see that right away and label you as a spammer and consider you to be untrustworthy.
Also, imagine this scenario: You sign on to LinkedIn and notice that you have a contact request. You don't know the person but the invite says they are a financial consultant. Everything looks ok so you accept. One of your trusted contacts finds them on your list and decides to use their services. They end up losing thousands of dollars because of the misadvice your "new friend" gave them. Guess what? You now look bad because you allowed them on your contact list. Instant lowered credibility.
I've been on Facebook and Twitter for well over six months and I only have just over 100 contacts on each. I'm proud of my modest number because I have built my contacts slowly and carefully. The following is my criteria for accepting friend or contact request:
1. They must be my real life friend/colleague/client or a personal and trusted referral of one of those three
OR
2. They must produce a service or product that I use or plan to use (i.e. program, blog, newsletter) and I would highly recommend it to my friends.
OR
3. They are someone I can learn and grow from because I know their reputation and I trust it.
OR
4. They are a member of an online or real life group I belong to and after interacting with them in that group I have deemed them to be trustworthy
What is your criteria for accepting peope into your virtual world. If you don't currently have one I suggest considering it. Your success and reputation could depend on it!
**Lastly I wanted to remind everyone to catch me on BlogTalk radio tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. PST/Noon EST where I'll be a guest on Marketing Moments with Michelle-3M Ideas I hope you can tune in! It should be a lot of fun!
Have a great week everyone!
Jackie
1 comments:
Hi, Jackie! This is a very good article and you hit the nail right on the head. I was on Linked In for a short time and in no time racked up about 500 contacts. Everything was fine and I was having fun but then when I decided to use the tool to promote my jewelry business and Web site, it was unbelievable how fast and how many contacts asked me to stop sending them my emails. One lady said she got sooo many emails as it was and I was "adding to it". Some other people with a business enjoyed sending their little sales notices out but when I announced my Birthday Week necklace sales, they asked me to delete them off the mailing list. It hurt my feelings, because here these contacts wanted to be Linked In, but then when I raised my hand, waved a flag and sent out an email or two that I was a jewelry designer, these people at the end of the day could care less. They were just being selfish to promote themselves. So, now I do MySpace. I feel I am more of a personality, I am a "people" person, and this way, people can be my friend or not. I am not going to beg someone to be my friend. It's funny in life how we always have to "prove" ourselves in life. While some people are so sweet like angels and support us, others will stamp on you and kick you to the side. But, win the lottery, or be a guest on Oprah...and everyone wants your attention. Life is funny like that. But, great article. I think as we mature...we realize quality is much better than quantity. And, it is always good to weed-out, weed-out the excess over time.
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