Image via CrunchBaseSocial media is a great thing. You can keep in touch with Aunt Millie in Minnesota, reconnect with your college roommate, and forge new frontiers in business by leveraging new markets, creating partnerships, developing relationships with vendors, and finding customers. And, you can do it a lot faster than you did when you were passing out business cards at a trade show or networking event.
That said, like everything in business, and in life, you have to frequently reevaluate and reassess whether your "friends" are continuing to provide you and your business with the value that makes it worth keeping them in your rolodex.
Apparently, this is an issue that internet marketing guru Joel Comm has been pondering as well. According to the bio on his web site, Comm is an "entrepreneur, bestselling author, public speaker, social media evangelist, and mobile marketing innovator." I don't even remember how I ended up following him, but I liked the fact that he wasn't afraid to address the sticky issues, even those that involved his colleauges, like this post he wrote on ethics (or lack of) in internet marketing. I've never ordered his products or read his books, but I've continued to subscribe to his blog and followed him on Twitter because I liked what he stood for.
Until I read his post this morning. Titled Unfriending for Fun and Sanity, he let his Facebook followers who he'd "friended" on his personal page know (along with the rest of the free world) that he was "unfriending" everyone he didn't have a personal connection with and suggested that they instead follow him on his fan page.
Although I have no problem with what he said, there are a number of things about the way he said it that I think were unnecessary (and I said as much in my comment.) They are things that I think can be a lesson to all of us:
1. Pack Your Message in Your Headline
This is the first rule that every journalism student learns. Your headline should convey the essence of your story because that will determine whether anyone even bothers to read it. "Unfriending for Fun and Sanity" sounds just plain mean.
2. Keep Your Business and Personal Pages Separate
If you are using social media to market your business, create a strategy that does just that. Joel calls himself a "social media evangelist and mobile marketing innovator", so I'm not sure why he'd invite total strangers to "friend" him on his personal page. That's kind of like inviting a whole city to sleep over at your house, and then realizing you have to always be on your best behavior, you can never leave the towels on the bathroom floor and you always have to watch what you say in mixed company.
3. They're People, People!
I'm not sure what happened, but for some reason, the advent of social media has caused us to forget our manners. Now, things we never would have dreamed of doing pre-Facebook, we can do anonymously (like cyber bullying, or destroying a person's or business' reputation,) and then not give a second thought to the lives we wrecked or the feelings we hurt.
If you find yourself overloaded with a few too many "friends" who are taking up prime real estate with their silly Farmville games or nonsensical chatter, or as in Joel's case, if you had a "what-was-I-thinking-by-inviting everyone-and-their-brother-to-friend-me-on-my-personal-page?" epiphany, invite them to follow you on your fan page. Then, instead of making them feel like gum on the bottom of your shoe, you can have your blog post be about how you're streamlining your marketing efforts and that you look forward to providing them with more dynamic and meaningful content.
Lest I sound like a 95 pound weakling who's used to getting sand kicked in her face, the concept of kindness in business is big business. A quick search on Amazon for books about "kindness" and "business" yielded nearly 50 titles, and I'm sure there are many more.
Bottom line is this: being nice pays.
