Seth Godin’s latest post (as of this moment) talks about the spam-like practices of how people try to build contacts through mass-adding them to your Friends lists in social media sites.  The same holds true for:

email spam, blog spam, Twitter spam, Squidoo spam, comment spam, phone spam, politician spam

 In his example, he was contacted as part of a mass E-mailing that was recruiting people for a new blog network.  When he responded and pointed out a couple of problems with this approach, the sender responded back in a way that reinforced the generic, robotic, and ultimately off-putting method used to recruit bloggers, much like any mass communication.

(Those of you who were reading yesterday probably read about my little “mailing list” fiasco, so Seth Godin’s post was rather timely for me.  :)  )

“Hundreds of exciting people are waiting to meet YOU!”

I’ve been experimenting with the “mass add” approach to building up social contacts and I’ve seen other people try to include me in their networks.  Having seen it from both sides, I’ve concluded, as you might guess, that without interaction and sharing of ideas, adding hundreds of people to your Friends lists isn’t going to do squat for you.

A few weeks ago I was following about 1400 other people on Twitter.  I’m now following about 850 people.  I was a bit abrupt in unFollowing some people, but I tried to stick to the following guidelines:

  • I left a lot of people who weren’t following me back
  • I left people who hadn’t been Twittering for some time
  • I left if I couldn’t see the possibility of really connecting with that person

So, yes, it was a bit of a “catch” tactic, but social media does make it easy to try these things and it’s not really a faux pas to try it if you don’t annoy the crap out of strangers.

But I already suck at correspondance and greeting cards!

I’ll be honest - trying to follow 850 people is, well… damned near impossible, at least for me.  There’s a number of these people who I haven’t really been in contact with…  I’m just kind of watching and checking out the chatter that streams by.  You can learn some interesting things that way. 

However, even though I’m following these people, I make no assumptions of actual connection, friendship, or trust until there’s some exchange of messages or conversation.  Yes, there are times when I’ve mass-broadcasted some things on Twitter looking for social media support, but I rationalize those actions with the knowledge that I’m just asking them to click their mouse a few times and it’s also voluntary.  I’ve come into contact with some nice people that way - lucky, I guess.

I do regret, however, that I’ve not been very good at welcoming new followers.  I blame a lot of that on Twitter’s interface but I could have tried harder, too.  I think a lot of people are either inciting or experiencing mass following on Twitter, so I kind of hope that I’m not the only one with poor manners.   :)

Hello, how are you?  My name is Mark.  Thanks for Following me!

So, if you are one of the kind souls who follows me on Twitter and we haven’t really connected yet… mostly likely it’s my fault, not yours.  Please, feel free to DM me or otherwise say hello if we haven’t spoken yet:  I’m always glad to see a kind face and exchange some thoughtful words.  If there’s something I can do to help you out, I’ll certainly listen and see if it’s something that I can do.

For those of you who’ve suffered through some of my faux pas on Twitter (next Twitter Word Association Contest will be carried out much less obnoxiously…) and are still Following me, thanks for putting up with this n00b.    :)

Once again, Mr. Godin stimulates the neurons of this Broadcasting Brain.  Thanks Seth!

Post Script:  I took a few minutes to check Twitter again and I wound up writing some silly Tweets referencing the fine gentleman known as Wil Wheaton.  I was kind of riffing on his star power and how no one would have foreseen it twenty years ago.  For the record, I think Wil Wheaton is doing great things and I respect that.  Plus he’s probably had to deal with more shit than I ever have, so that’s something, too.  Unfortunately, my fingers occasionally outrun my common sense.  No harm intended. 

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