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Your Communities are Friends
So you have decided that the new you is going to be involved in Social Media. You are going to build friend networks on Facebook and Twitter just for a start. For these to work for you as you build an identity and presence on the Web, it is not just numbers. It is not a game and those followers are not just names. They are people so let’s lay some ground rules to make your new community work for you. These from Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith are a good place to start.
Three Action Rules for Your New Game
1.When you treat people well, they treat you well back, People know that they should be nice, but how often do they follow through? The little differences add up. If you send someone a note of praise in an e-mail (or better still, a link in a blog post), it goes a hundred times deeper than what you normally do. Don’t do it to get something back. Do it because you are human. But be ready to appreciate what happens when you’re outwardly nice to people.
2.The wider your network, the easier it is to get things done. Get to know more people. Do it is person at events. Do it online by commenting on blogs. Follow more people on Twitter. Expand on LinkedIn. Cultivate your network by passing information on to people who may be able to use it. We can’t stress this enough: Powering your network and growing it into something far-reaching and diverse means a world of difference.
3.The more personal the relationship, the more straightforward you can be. As you start developing more and more online relationships, make sure that you build strong personal relationships that allow you to share genuine thoughts, not just networks of shallow contacts. Old-school networking was all about that. Stacks of business cards. We want people who will go out of their way to help each other, not just people we can ping with an e-mail. That takes work.
