What!!!????

I ran across an article posted on another social media site/blog and I was a little perplexed. The whole of the article came down to "I just do not understand - should I connect with everyone who comes my way?" Although this may be an innocent question, is it really or does it bring up an excellent talking point?

I have seen and heard the countless stores of people with 1000s of contacts in their online “Social Media Rolodex” (SMR) and have often wondered ---- "WHY?".

Side bar - if you have not read "The Tipping Point" I would suggest you pick a copy up and read it cover to cover.

Back to the question at hand - "WHY?" Well there are obvious reasons 1. It is a game to see who can get the most 2. People think it will make them look popular and 3. People just do not know what they are doing on Social Media sites. Now before we move on, I want to state something - "If you are a business and have 1000s of contacts/customers this is different" BUT you still need to be careful as you will need to have a well defined strategy on how to “individually” connect with your customers. As individually connecting is what Social media is about. Remember it is not Mass Media On-line Marketing.

What this all leads to is - setting goals which include why you are doing what you are doing. You cannot be all over the map and expect to be successful. Example – let us say we have over 1000 contacts in our account. Now realistically you do not have enough time to communicate with all of them (which includes reading their posts and responding to their post). If you tried to, you would not get anything else done in your life. You would become a pasty (from lack of sun light) looking individual. This would in a since make you a prisoner in your own home. You would have become a slave to your computer which is connected to others afraid to experience freedom. Shoot people in China would be considered freer!

Remember freedom comes in many forms and when that freedom is compromised we need to ask ourselves – “is it worth it anymore?”

The whole point is, make sure you have well defined realistic goals that will allow you to be a productive human being. Not a computer controlled drone.
As the old adage goes – “don’t bite off more than you can handle!”