Social Networking - Are You Crazy YET?

Facebook this.
Twitter that.
LinkedIn the other.

What is a person to do to keep his/her sanity?

You have to be on Facebook and you have to send out 4, 8, 12 messages a day.
You have to tweet at least 4 times a day or 6 times a week or 42 times a month.
You have to have at least this many LinkedIn connections or you could look bad? Do you want to look bad on LinkedIn?

Are you blogging yet?
If not, forget it, you will never get any business.
You might as well close it up.

Had enough yet?

Relax.
Building relationships has not changed in thousands of years and no matter what the tools are, the process is still the same.

1. Relax - regardless of what "they" tell you, you are probably no further behind than most people. In fact, if you know a little you are already ahead of many.

2. If you want to learn about social media, look on the internet, there are thousands of free classes. Look in your local area, there are classes. Take a few classes and learn.

3. Talk with people you know who are good or who have been working with it. Not the people who tell you there is no other way, just people you know and trust who can tell you the real story.

4. Connect with a few good companies that can help you with it. There are many good companies out there. But there are also many "not so good" companies out there.

Bottom line is very simple.
Social networking is just networking with a different set of tools.

These rules always have and always will apply to networking.

1. First you have to make a friend before you make a client. Facebook, LinkedIn, or a face to face networking event. People are still buying from people they like.

2. Stop telling everyone about you, you, you and start learning about others. Just like the person at the chamber meeting who gets in your face. People can get in your face on the social networking arena as well.

3. Honesty is still the way to go. You will get caught and that is a fact of life. But the bad thing is that once caught on a social network, many, many, many people will know. - Very quickly.

4. It is not about quantity, it is still about quality. Even in the social networking world.

So you have thousands of followers on Twitter - what does it get for you?
So you have over 2000 friends on Facebook - is it getting you business?
So you are part of the "over 500" connections on LinkedIn - if I called you to refer, do you know all those people enough to just call them?

There is no magic - regardless of what they might tell you. There are some tricks of the trade. There are some right ways to do it. There are some better ways to be successful. But there is no magical solution that will bring all business your way.

Those who are successful in networking are those who build the best relationships. You need to learn the tool, because you already know the process. You already know how to effectively network. Now learn how to use the tools that are being used today.