By Mike Muhney
Successful business is the result of meaningful relationships. As a businessman, I’m always looking to capitalize on every possible opportunity, but when I consider the potential value that Facebook and LinkedIn are capable of providing from a business perspective, I am often met with disappointment by those who presumably want to “connect” with me.
Why? Because the very purpose of these products is to facilitate more effective relationships. I know that this may sound heretical, but I don’t think that they do.
In fact, I first thought about titling this article “LinkedIn’s Missing Link and the Fallacy of Facebook,” but I decided against it because I don’t have a cynical or negative view of those specific products. In fact, they are universally recognized success stories in today’s fiercely competitive market. Instead, I chose the title I did because at the core of all that we do, we are in business to establish meaningful relationships. The tool, it seems, has itself defined the relationship status but instead is merely the mechanism to help facilitate one. And even with that, more often than not it seems to get off to a bad start or effectively none at all.
So what’s the problem? These social networking tools are designed to help people forge closer relationships, but users often fail to harness their true potential. I refer to this failure as “LinkedIn’s missing link” and the “fallacy of Facebook” because these products, which are designed to facilitate more personal interaction, often start out in just the opposite manner.
If your experience is anything like mine, you no doubt receive requests to connect on various social networking platforms. More often than not, I seem to receive the impersonal, default message, rather than a personal, customized message. It’s disappointing because at the very creation of the relationship, the other party fails to indicate a genuine interest in establishing a true connection. Isn’t this the most crucial time to personally and enthusiastically demonstrate a genuine interest? I think so. To not do so to me indicates a self-serving interest, which is not the basis upon which to even suppose that this relationship will ever have legs.
Most of the time, living in today’s hyper-connected world, people seem to be taking less time to develop quality relationships but invest their time and energy seeking to increase their Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, and Twitter followers. Presumably, all for the sake of appearing popular or in-demand.
Ask yourself this question: “Does my personal livelihood, and the success of my business depend more on the quantity or the quality of my connections?” If you are in the more-quality camp, then both sending as well as accepting these invitations by the default settings is counterproductive. Invitations with generic messages serve the opposite purpose of your ultimate goal. It is a message to the other person fraught with high risk that it really is, well, a meaningless connection.
Now if you are my competitor, I love the fact that your interest in connecting with others is only superficial. And that is how I hope you remain. You may appear as if you are building relationships and relationship value when in fact you are doing very little, if any, such thing. On the other hand, if you will make a little extra effort to use these social networking platforms to their full potential, then I’m going to have a harder time competing against you.
Always remember, there is no traffic jam on the extra mile. Success demands that you go above and beyond what your competitor is doing. You can start by taking the time to convey your sincere interest in establishing meaningful connections by crafting personal invitations to connect. Distinguish yourself from your competition. Turn meaningless invitations to meaningful expressions of your sincere interest. Don’t expect anyone to respond to that generic invitation with great expectation. If you do, you just might be missing a valuable link.
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Mike Muhney is the CEO of VIPorbit Software and the co-creator of VIPorbit Mobile Relationship Manager app for iPhone and iPad. viporbit.com
