Why did you want to be my Facebook friend? Why did you want to connect with me on LinkedIn? When people seek me out and add me on social networking sites, I do something that is apparently quite strange: I try to engage them.
As long as we appear to have a handful of real friends in common, I’ll usually give the benefit of the doubt and say hello. I’ll send a brief, friendly note asking what’s been happening and what’s coming up, giving them the opportunity to tell me why they were interested in connecting.
But the amount of replies I get vs. the amount of “friend” requests I receive is a lot lower than you might expect from a group of people who just hit a button that reads “connect”.
The ones who make a real effort to do so, who take a brief moment to be people, stand out. In a sea of noise, I remember them.
The people who do respond will often tell me that they like my work, that they were influenced by a certain article, or that they loved the sounds I got on a certain track. They might then tell me what they’ve been working on, what they’re looking forward to, what they’re hoping for, maybe even what they’re nervous about.
If they ever want to reach out again in the future, a little bell rings somewhere in the back of my brain. Call it a troublesome little quirk of evolution, call it a tiny degree of well-earned trust, but I’m more likely to take them seriously if they want something from me in the future.
Then, there are the people who will respond by writing: “Oh you know. Nothing much. Just networking.” This isn’t quite as bad as not saying anything, but it’s not that much better, either.
If you were really networking, you wouldn’t be telling me that you were networking. You would be trying to connect with me. You would be trying to find out what my interests are, what my hopes and dreams and fears and favorite things might be. And then, maybe you’d leave me knowing a little something about you.
That’s what networking is. It’s not clicking a button. It’s not saying the word “networking.” It means getting to know new people.
Who have you gotten to know recently? And what have you done to make them want to know you? As the saying goes, “the best way to be interesting is to be interested.”
So ask yourself: Are you really connecting with people, whether it’s with your music or with your messages? Or are you just making a show of it? I’ll be asking myself the same thing.