Social Media Relationships: Are They Real?

August 24, 2010 on 7:30 am | In Marketing, My Creative Team, Online, PR, Social Media | 9 Comments

Just saw Suzanne Vara’s excellent piece on building social media relationships. Let’s listen to Ms. Vara for a moment:

Social media has afforded us the opportunity to meet a lot of people. We gain insight as to who they are through their profiles, blogs, with whom they associate and our interactions with them…we find an entirely new world and start building relationships. There are some people we just click with and feel like we have known them forever.  We like them and look forward to seeing them each day on their blog, on our blog and in our platform streams.

There are a number of people – those whom I call DCs or “digital colleagues” – I look forward to each day as well. But are these relationships real and actionable from a business standpoint? Most are not. But some of those online relationships – as Ms. Vara points out – may blossom into something deeper.

As we have discussed before, the value of connections in business cannot be underestimated. I’m talking primarily about tight connections that you use to help you achieve your personal and professional goals. Friend and business coach Brent Dees of Focus Four tells us that you if want a $1 million business, you should have 40 contacts (your Focus 40) each of whom can bring you $25,000 in business. Your job is to help each of these contacts achieve their goals and they, in turn, will help you reach yours. This is a spin on the method that made Andrew Carnegie a millionaire many times over.

Now, Brent says that a human can’t truly support more than 40 contacts of this nature, and I agree.

However, with the advent of social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, you can have access to hundreds of contact to help you connect with others who may be able to help you.  Social media means your close relationships are no longer bound by geography – and that is a beautiful thing. For instance, there is Bob Taylor from Grand Rapids, Michigan who I talk with about wine, bacon, guitar playing and social media. Jay Ehret in Waco, Texas, has become someone I read and listen to via podcast. Says Jay in a piece called Welcome To Social Town,

The amazing thing is I didn’t know any of these people three years ago. This is what social media has done for my professional, and personal, life. To me, it’s not a marketing channel, it’s a community of my favorite people who don’t happen to live in the same city I do. I wish we all did live in the same place because we would have some killer happy hours! But we don’t, so we just hang out together online, in Social Town.

What do you think?

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  • http://www.kherize5.com Suzanne Vara

    Thank you so very much for including my thoughts from the blog. Connections and friends are the power behind any network/community that you create. It is more than building a community around what you have to offer, it is building a community around what they have to offer.

    I like the DC terminology very much as it really describes what I was saying in that paragraph. Although for some the DC does translate into an actionable business but for many the answer is no. Why? We read and learn from people within our field. That is what we know and to remain competitive we have to stay on top of what is going on. And when we are engaging with them, it does turn into biz many times through a referral. Outside of early adopters, the rest do not want to be the first one to work with a company or buy the latest and greatest until they have some feedback from people they trust. A trusted member of a community that gives the green light, pushes others to do so as well.

    I do agree to an extent with the 40 but I have to expand that a bit. While I do not want to imply that other relationships are scalable or not as important as when we “meet” someone we do not or should not look immediately to see if they qualify for your 40 and if not move on. No, as they may have someone that can be a part of your close knit 40. I have different groups for lack of a better term that I engage with. My sports folks whom are connected to me for sports. Sure we have spoken about other aspects of life but our real connection is our love of our team. There are industry folks that in the truest sense are competitors but yet I would not look away from them as they are not in my 40.

    I am a big believer in supporting others to achieve their goals and you learn a lot about yours along the way and if they in turn help to achieve yours, that is a bonus. In a way we are building relationships to fill a need. Whether that be to help others, increase our bank account or to learn, we are filling a need.

    And please, call me Suzanne; linguistically, it is easier.

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  • http://www.esimplestudios.com Gabriele Maidecchi

    I am not really sure what the “magic number” really is, or if 40 is too much or too few, and I agree that one’s focus shouldn’t be _that_, at least from start.
    What I noticed though, and I hope I am not stating the obvious, is that sometimes, you really can get lost in following your connections’ activities.
    Probably the best quality one can have is the ability to quickly discern valuable individuals among the “white noise” social networks are mostly made of, for how harsh it may sound.
    Of course I am well aware for most people I might very well be white noise myself ;)

  • http://smile.ly JinAtSmilely

    Social media relationships sure are real. They might not always start off strong, but just like any other relationship, it needs a starting point. It’s so much easier to catch up with others via social media. Research has shown that we can only keep track of 150 individuals in our head – social media does all the legwork for us and makes things so much more convenient.

  • http://www.kherize5.com Suzanne Vara

    Gabriele

    I think to some we are all white noise. It does become a bit of a ridiculous numbers game when we get into followers, friends, connects, etc. It is impossible to keep up but I do find that there is a set of people that we do find ourselves communicating with pretty regularly which does exceed the 40. This is great and even better if it is your goal to communicate but when your goal is to build a client base, 10/40 or even 100 people that are not helping to achieve this goal are nice to have but are that white noise.

  • http://my-creativeteam.com/blog Harry Hoover

    The 40 number is really for identifying the people who can truly make a difference in your business. I don’t rule out having a lot more contacts, but as you point out, Suzanne and Gabriele, a lot of those folks are just white noise. To me – in my business and personal life – I try to eliminate the noise and focus on those people who make a difference.

  • http://www.esimplestudios.com Gabriele Maidecchi

    Well said, I think just experience can help you become good at that

  • http://www.kherize5.com Suzanne Vara

    Harry

    Well said as I think we need more of this and less of the numbers game. People are judged by how many followers they have and are sought after the more they have. Why? I developed a friendship with CB over the past year but I did not seek him out as he had a lot of followers. Nah, he has too many of those people. We get along and have a ton of laughs. We talk about other people and never about client work. We are never at a loss for conversation as when you are friends, you never are. Not all my connections are friends, but the ones I communicate with regularly, they are becoming my friends if they are not already.

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