Social Media Rant: Anyone can push a button but how do you make it count?

As a recent graduate (still weird to say) and avid user of social media I have numerous profiles across the web. For the past two years I have adamantly tried to get my friends and fellow Gen-Yers to embrace social media to assist them in their networking and job searches. While I was successful on a few fronts, it never caught on as originally intended.

Lately I have been getting invites from friends to connect on LinkedIn and other professional networks, which is great. Unfortunately I have drawn a line between my professional and personal online life and take it seriously. So when I get an invitation to connect on LinkedIn with a generic message “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.” from a friend with an incomplete profile, I get a little twitch in my neck. As much as I love my friends and want to see them succeed, I refuse to accept their invitation. If they don’t take the time to complete their profile and think that by pushing a button with the click of the mouse that they can join my network then they have missed the boat on the meaning of social media.

When I get an invite on LinkedIn or any other professional network from someone I don’t know with a generic message, I simply reply to them asking for an introduction and why they would like to connect. The point of social media is to be S O C I A L. If I connect with someone whom I don’t know for unknown reasons then they are of no value to me and can actually be detrimental if someone asks for an introduction to them. This is almost like the only debate about quality over quantity. Is it better to have 10 close friends or 100 acquaintances?

This entry was posted on July 5, 2010, 10:42 am and is filed under breaking social norms, business, gen-y, Linkedin, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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http://beachbreeze.wordpress.com/ Ashley White

So true! I love the point you made about social media being "SOCIAL." Even on sites as common as Facebook, so many users 'friend request' people who they don't know, have no interest in getting to know, or possibly met them once and will never speak to them again. Blogs, Facebook, and other sites are personal places (even if for a business). They should only be connected with people who will form some kind of relationship with them. I have to say thank you for these words of wisdom. Many people overlook topics like this one, but I feel like everyone should pay so much more attention.

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http://www,tracecohen.me Trace Cohen

It can be very frustrating sometime when social media isn’t used in a social way but an egotistical introverted way. Not every tool or platform out there will be utilized as they were intended to but I will make sure that anyone I connect/work with uses it in that fashion.

For me Facebook is just a way to connect and keep in touch with anyone I’ve met. It’s a storyboard of your life and I don’t mind friending people I’ve met once or connected with online. Everything on my Facebook account is stuff I want people to see. LinkedIn though is my professional Facebook and I have 1/5th the amount of connections because it is my professional life online and I don’t want to taint it – especially with people I don’t know just to add another notch to my connections.

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