Facebook Will Help You Suck At Networking
October 31st, 2008 | by Jason Alba |If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I just read a profound quote by Peter Shankman on NewspaperGirl’s blog (which I can’t get to right now):
“If you don’t know how to network in the first place, all social media can do is give you the chance to screw up to a much larger group of people in a much shorter amount of time.”
Oh my gosh. This sums up my hangup with people who are screwing it up. Facebook, and Twitter, and handshakes and … it’s just they don’t know how to network in the first place!
“Hi, thanks for Friending me on Facebook, BUY MY STUFF!”
Or…
“Hey, I want to invite you to this totally useless Group or Event so I can make money off of you, after you hear all my wisdom, and you’ll then want to buy my upsell!”
Folks, go for the relationship first, and let the sale happen when it happens. Maybe I suck at hard sales, and I’m all wrong. Hold on, I gotta go prune some of those who are pretty aggressive at it.
And, if you want to read more on this topic, go pick up Never Eat Alone… it’s an awesome book on “building intimate relationships.”
2 Responses to “Facebook Will Help You Suck At Networking”
By Karen Swim on Oct 31, 2008 | Reply
ROFL! I love Peter and your example is one of the many reasons why. In recent weeks I have grown so weary of having people shove things in my face that I have started to shield myself from the onslaught. Thanks for sharing this advice!
By David Bruce Jr on Mar 31, 2009 | Reply
..LMOA too!
I’ve been in Internet Marketing for 9 years, I’ve witnessed the rise and fall of FFA pages (free for all advertising, worked fine when the net was much, MUCH smaller)
seen the rise and fall of Safelists (spam friendly zones for marketers to sell to each other and not get booted from their ISPs)
I’ve seen email marketing go from ‘dirty’, to ‘ethical’, to automated, and now everyone is so tuned out to the medium that the message all sounds the same.
Facebook is being touted as MLM friendly to the MLM crowd. (full disclosure, I USED to do MLM, my Dad did before he died, I wont do it now, someone always gets holding the bag)
The Facebook people need to learn how to De-MLM-ize itself.
Somebody from the Facebook engineer section should spend some time in Marketing forums to learn what is beneficial to the Facebook community and what is leading lambs to the slaughterhouse.
Marketing can be done ethically, MLM is for those who are too lazy to do so. (IMHO)