We all have friends who make it hard to actually be friends with them. You know the type: they don’t really pay attention when you talk, they don’t return your calls and ignore your emails and they think the world revolves around them!
Those same people exist online—the question is: are you one of those people?
Whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, your blog or some other social media site, do you treat your connections like they mean something or are they just a “number” to you?
Several weeks ago, a business that I follow posted a picture on their Facebook page with the caption: “We were on the local news today!” The photo was of someone being interviewed, but there was no way to know why they were being interviewed. As I thought that was pretty cool, I commented: “What was the interview about?”
Two days later, they responded with a rather curt: “We’ve been posting about it on our Facebook Page. Details there.”
I’m busy—and I was annoyed—so I didn’t go to their Page. They didn’t make it “easy” for me to get the answer to my question. In almost the same amount of time it took for them to type their response, they could have said: “In brief, we were interviewed about ______. If you’re interested, go to our Facebook page for more details.”
I’d also forgotten about the photo and my question as it took them so long to respond. So, again, they didn’t make it “easy” for me to even care about them…but they did make it easy for me not to comment on their Page again!
I also like the people who post a question—clearly in a way to suggest they want people to comment, then never acknowledge any responses. I’ll comment once—maybe twice—but if they ignore me, I don’t bother again.
This is SOCIAL media and it’s all about building relationships with people. If you’re only using the sites to find High School classmates and play games, then being one-dimensional in your efforts is OK. However, if you’re using social media as a business tool, then you have to interact with your connections in a meaningful manner. Basically, it comes down to treating your online connections like you’d want them to treat you.
What do you think? Do two-way communications matter to you? If you’ve been ignored, what did you think?
