Social networking…wow! I must admit over this long weekend I have really been encouraged and excited by the uptake in followers on my Twitter account, but one thing is really clear in the Tweeter world. People are taking shortcuts. They’re doing things the easy way, and frankly, I don’t think the easy way is the best way.
Here’s a bit of background to state my case, and you can agree or disagree with me – it’s your call.
People just seem to send you the same old, boring old stuff.
Let me use an analogy here in demonstrating. You have a post office box for your business, and every afternoon at about 2pm, you head down to the post office to collect your mail. You open the box and find a handful of envelopes. You have your standard DL size envelopes with typed label and think, “It’s just a piece of business correspondence.” You then have your window envelopes and know, “Hey, it’s another bill I need to pay.” Then you spot this small, bright red envelope which is handwritten and addressed to you personally.
What one do you open first?
What one do you feel most excited about?
What one really captures your interest?
The small, red envelope that’s handwritten and addressed to YOU of course!
You open the envelope and find a letter that was carefully written by a REAL PERSON who introduces themselves to you, with a view to building a business relationship.
What a change!
Sure! Another letter that came that day more or less did the same thing too, but it wasn’t personally addressed and it certainly wasn’t custom written just for you like the letter in the red envelope!
And that demonstrates my point. With social networking, I’m finding from my own experience in the last day or so (yes, I am brand new to Twitter!) that people are so incredibly IMPERSONAL when it comes to their attempts to network with me.
I really do want to network with other business people, with a view to building a business relationship with them. And that’s why I always send a Direct Message (DM as it’s called in the Tweeter world), personally thanking them for adding me and asking them to tell me about what they do. I want to know what it is that they do, so we can build a business relationship that is mutually beneficial.
And that’s why I don’t do this spammy stuff everybody seems to do with their social networking!
Does anybody else agree with me?
I’m sticking to my relationship-building guns when it comes to Twitter and Facebook. That’s because I know trust is the key to winning business – be it new or repeat business.
I encourage you to take the Tweeter and Facebook challenge and keep it personal! Show a real and genuine interest in those you wish to network with, and work on building RELATIONSHIPS!
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You are absolutely correct in your perceptions. It is interesting to see how huge the culture change has been over the last 20 to 25 years in most areas where that personal interaction was previously assumed and is now far too rare. We seem to be coming back full circle where our starting point was most business and networking was done personally, on a face to face basis. Then the internet took off and suddenly we had an explosion of new technology which made life simpler by allowing you to do things there and then – great for turnaround time but here began the slide into virtual anonymity; people became a name or an email address rather than a face and handshake. Life was easy and quick….and so we began to lose the personal skills, the gift of verbal conversation, the expression in ones tone of voice, replaced instead by a LOL,
or 
. Slowly however, I believe (or perhaps hope is a better word) we are coming back around to a more “humanly” interactive society, where technology aids rather than replaces. Take for example the trend for incorporating webcams into laptops. Sure, there are many fun excuses and uses for it, but they also begin to bring back the interaction, the ability to see someone’s composure, their expressions and (assuming the machine has a mic as well) it brings back the magic of HEARING someone literally LOL. The irony of it all is I sit here, thousands of miles away in the UK, having never conversed with you, typing this 
Some parts of life won’t change but those that can, we should change for the better! If nothing else, your analogy has inspired me to become more personal as simply by reading and typing this, I come to realise I am one of the digital souls! LOL……
I like your blog. It has a nice design and I like your tips. Thank you for your social networking tip. Letters that are not personal certainly stay in my inbox for a long time or end up in the bin (paper letters).
Mel
Thanks guys! So glad to hear that I’m not the only one who sees the trends in the way people network on social networking websites the same!
Obviously as a sales copywriter, I write the type of copy that you see on these websites that people often push us to visit, however, if you are networking with somebody for the first time via Twitter or Facebook, it’s not polite to just push somebody to your sales page when you don’t even know them.
Social networking in my view, isn’t a place to forget your manners. For you to enjoy any real and lasting success in the social networking sphere, you need to put in effort. You need to focus on building relationships and realize that just because somebody is behind a computer screen, doesn’t mean that they’re not real people. And chances are, they are sick and tired of the spammy rubbish that every Tom, Dick and Harry spits out via social networking platforms.
It’s time to get back to building relationships!
It is truly refreshing to find other people who also believe that good, effective, honest communication is such an important part of life let alone business!!
xxx
I’m a student of Physiotherapy and working in the health sector I see every day people are referred to as “the knee replacement in bed four” or the “laparotomy in bed two”…I mean come on!!…these are real, honest to God people…with real feelings and emotions!!….Just because they are in need of medical treatment doesn’t mean they can’t hear you and it certainly doesn’t mean they deserve any less respect just because you have a piece of paper to say you are a Doctor, or a Nurse or whatever and they may or may not!!
It is high time people working with people realised just how very important communication is!
If your day was crappy then ok…that’s not a good thing but does that person you are talking to on the phone right now really have to be pulled down to the emotional level you are at just because it is taking a little longer than you expected for your package to arrive??!! I mean obviously it was them personally who went to the postal service and then bribed someone NOT to post your package on time!!
Ok, so I am having a bit of a rant!…well I am going to stop now for fear of getting myself in a right old stew over something that is beyond my mere mortal control.
I realised a very long time ago that the only thing I can truly control is how I feel….no-one else can make me feel anything, not unless I let them!…So…on that note, spare a thought for those of us who are usually at the receiving end of the general public’s wrath even though for the most part we know absolutely nothing about what it is they are wrathful about (yeah I am aware “wrathful” probably IS a word I made up just now)…I wish for everyone to have a wonderful night (or day if you are on the other side of the world to me)…and I hope you all wake up after a very restful sleep feeling happy, relaxed, positive and joyful that you are alive, breathing and loved, even if it is only by the cat/dog….they have feelings too so they DO count!
Thankyou, that is really nice information, appreciated.
Hmmm…great to know, there were without a doubt a couple of things which I had not thought of before.