Remember Your (Internet) Manners

When it comes to manners, I am always finding myself wishing others would use more of them. This most often happens when I am talking to someone and someone else, who I don’t know, comes up and joins in the conversation, and the conversation continues and ends with no introductions. Besides lacking good basic manners, it’s very annoying.

That’s why I always make a point to interrupt at the beginning of one of these to make sure the other people know each other. No one has ever gotten annoyed from me saying, “Do you know each other?”

But it seems that manners on the Internet are even less apparent. Everyone is trying to get people on their list so they can sell them something. Generic invites ran rampant across Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networking sites. Sending out generic invites misses the whole purpose behind social networking. The original intent was to build relationships and that means personal communication.

How do most people react when they receive a standard message such as, “I’d like to add you to my network?” Unless they already know you, they will react to it as they would to spam.

When I started using Twitter, I was confused because I was instructed that it was a place to have short conversations. But even now, I find that most of the people tweeting are just sending out random self-promotional tweets that hardly engage the reader. What happened to the engaging conversations?

I would like to propose that you personalize each invitation that you send out. And it’s not that hard or time-consuming to do. Here are some ways:

1) Remind them of how you know them. Example: “We met at a Chamber of Commerce meeting last month. Would you like to stay connected?”
2) Share what you appreciate about them or their service. Example: “I really admire the work you’re doing and would like to join in your efforts.”
3) Tell them of a shared interest. Example: “I see that we both like fill in the blank. Let’s get connected!”
4) Refer to one of their events that you attended. Example: “I attended your teleseminar on attracting more clients and would like to stay connected.”
5) Let them know that you are following them. Example: “I have been enjoying reading your blog/newsletter/tweets….etc. and I’d like to be your friend.”

Letting the new contact know how you met or know them will make the communication more personal and less spammy. After all, we would all like to have a crowd of fans/followers who value who we are and what we are offering. It’s not a numbers game as in traditional marketing. It’s about quality, which means targeted, niche marketing. You want to connect with people who are interested in what you do as well as with people whose services you are also interested in. Then it becomes a mutually beneficial connection.

You don’t need thousands of people on your list, who might SOMEDAY want to buy your product. You only need about 1000 people who are keenly interested in what you have to offer and buy regularly from you. In order to get that kind of a list, you need to cultivate personal relationships. And it starts with the personalized invitation.