One single tip for being much more effective in using social media

Okay, pardon a small rant:  I have developed a major pet peeve when it comes to people linking to me on linkedin or friending me on facebook, and that is, not making any effort to attach a personal note.

I honestly think I wouldn't care so much if the default was a total lack of a note.  But when I get that Linkedin/Facebook form note from someone wanting to connect to me, the first thing that goes through my mind is, "you want to connect to me, but that connection is not worth enough to you to take 15 seconds to say a personal hello??"

Even when I am connecting to total strangers, I always write a note.  I confess, it's always the same note, but they don't know that.  I basically say, "nice to be connected to you, but if I ever get a gig from linkedin I will fall over in a dead faint."

Amazingly, writing this note to people has garnered me some excellent advice (specifically, from my adwords expert pal xurxo vidal up in Montreal about places to go and read about how to make better use of linked in.)

It has become painfully obvious to me that there are some people that just automatically "friend" every single person in their e-mail address book.  I confess, I find this to be somewhat annoying.  If there's nothing particularly special about our relationship, why bother?

Being an author and speaker, I am a somewhat "public" person, and I get a fair number of friend requests from total strangers.  If I click on their face in the facebook invite, and I get that "only shares certain information" message, and they have not attached any kind of personal note, we'll gee whiz, how do I know they're not an ax murderer? 

Unlike this blog, twitter, and linkedin, Facebook really isn't a public interface for me.  I use it to interact with my actual real-life friends.  Mostly I am just inquiring of my "dance friends" about who is going to a given dance on a given night, and I warn my non-dance friends that that's really all I use it for.

I have a facebook fan page (feel free to be a fan!) where I post all my professional goings-on.  I'm trying very hard to keep it separate from my personal face book posts, but I may have to rebuild the site on a different separate account to make sure my professional announcements aren't appearing in my personal facebook page newsfeed. 

Anyway, just today a total stranger friended me on facebook.  Normally they would be placed in facebook limbo, but they took the trouble to write a lengthy note to tell me how they found me and who we know in common.  This made a sizable impression on me; I had some idea of who they are, and I friended them immediately.  30 seconds of typing made the difference between a highly negative and a highly positive first impression. 

So I guess the message is, it's not about the quantity of friend you have, it's about the quality of the connections.  You only have one chance to make a first impression.  Is a form letter the best you can do? 

(c) Justin Locke