July 25, 2009 197 Comments

Quid Pro No

Consider this an open-ended kind of post. I have questions as much as I have ideas. It revolves around online etiquette and human interaction. I’d love your thoughts, if you’ve a moment.

It revolves around quid pro quo, or “something for something.”

The basic premise of quid pro quo is that people attempt fair/equal transactions. This makes perfect sense when the exchange is obvious: I’ll give you $1.00 for that soda pop.

It’s a lot harder when it comes to situations between humans. Let’s start simply: if I follow you on Twitter, you’ll likely follow me back. Right? If I choose to friend you on LinkedIn, a professional network, will you be so quick to reciprocate? Well now it depends. How about Facebook? We’re friends on Twitter. Why not Facebook?

And this is just “friending” in the online world.

Here’s where this gets tricky:

If I invite you to join the Facebook group for Trust Agents, it’s because I think you’ll get some value out of participating there. Say you join the group. If you now invite me to join your real estate company’s fan page after you’ve joined my book’s group, what should I do? Should I say yes because you said yes to me?

But I have no interest in real estate, except for when I’m making a transaction.

I was asked to join someone’s new social media application, but because I have a lot of stuff on the go, I politely declined. What I got back as a parting shot was, “Thanks. I’ll still buy your book.”

It left me feeling a bit awkward.

Do we expect reciprocal behavior all the time? Is it easy enough to see that I participate as much as I can in both directions, and that it’s not all about me?

What do you do in these situations?

Photo credit Mr Mystery

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http://www.streamsidefarm.com/ Cindy C.

Now see…you sound like someone I'd like to follow. ;) (in fast…just went and took care of that) This is kind of what makes me a little nervous about the whole…I'll be a good twitterer if I “add value”. What does that mean? I post a certain amount of links? I RTed 62.5% of the time? I don't spam, but there are still people who don't follow. Does that mean I don't have enough “value”? C'est la vie!! I'm me.
http://www.streamsidefarm.com/ Cindy C.

Ooops, should be in fact. Still learning to use the smaller keyboard on my son's laptop.
tombunzel

Moral bookkeeping is a lose-lose in the real world and so it is online.
Hard as it is to learn, if we don't do stuff in alignment with what we believe and want, we will be resentful and that helps no one. If things are meant to come around, they will. Too many shoulds in the world. Hard lesson for me but one I am working on, again in the real world and online.
sethsimonds

Some of the smartest, real-world, street-savvy advice on social interactions I've seen to date, Cathleen. Thank you!

I recently received this email:

–Hey Seth,
I am following you on Twitter and have been for a while but have not gotten a follow back from you. I am going through my account today, doing a little house cleaning. I don’t want to un-follow you so, please, begin following me so we can keep communicating.
Thanks, “Mike”–

I told him I “didn't like his hat” (love your use of that story) and that I was sad our only interaction was an unpleasant one.

Give a great networking tool to somebody who doesn't know how to effectively network and the results will always be the same: failure.

Now if he'd only changed the wording to say that he'd been doing house cleaning THEN looked at his list of followers, that would have been more personal and I might have liked his hat a bit more. =)

Thanks for posting, Chris. I've never seen you wear a hat but based on your general sense of style, I think I'd like it. =)
http://twitter.com/Sue_Anne Sue_Anne

Phil – I heard from another small business owner (a friend who runs a dessert shop) about a similar interaction with a charity recently. I don't understand it. I will admit that I asked a lot of people for donations to my spring fundraiser. So many that I felt guilty about “spam”, but I also know that the only way you can get a yes to ask the question. But, I also understand the economy and that local businesses can't give to everyone that asks. Anyone that sent me a no response received a nice note from me saying thank you for getting back to me and telling them that I understood that they couldn't help us this year, but that I hope they could consider helping us in the future. I also agree that consistency is the key. I encouraged my baker friend to put up a page on their home page detailing their donation policy that she could point people to.
http://www.sueannereed.com Sue Anne Reed

Chris,

My feeling with online social media interactions is that too many focus on the quantity and not enough people focus on the quality of their interactions / followers. I know that it’s directly related to a donation, but @childfund’s constant mentioning of their number of followers and requesting more followers is really annoying. And, I told them so on Friday. People are so focused on building that number of “fans” on Facebook, that they’re not realizing that the interaction is so much more important.

Instead of pestering you to become a fan of his Facebook site, the guy expecting the quid pro quo should instead be using that energy on finding fans that would actually be interested in engaging him in a business transaction.
CathleenRitt

Marti – I've had similar things happen recently. I went back through my favorites – what else is there to do when you have a book to write – and found all these @replies from people and to people that I don't follow or communicate with anymore. I couldn't even tell you why. I've been feeling melancholy about it, but I end up going back to my point in my comment to Chris, some of these relationships aren't as real as you think or hope they might be unfortunately. And people get busy or don't have time, etc.
One follower in particular dumped me and it puzzled me so much that I sent him an email apologizing for whatever I had said or done, but got no response. I comforted myself with another thought from my comment to Chris, that whatever it was, it was his thing not mine.
The other thing I told myself is that maybe some people have started consolidating their info. Now that you can get your Twitter stream on Facebook and FriendFeed, if you use those more it might make sense not to follow on Twitter. I don't know, probably nobody does that, but it makes me feel better to think so.

Anyway, I think the whole “add value” is a lot of crap especially if adding value is defined as Retweeting- that's just playing telephone. If you tweet something nice, thoughtful, funny or smart once a week, you're adding value.

Gary Vee made a great comment at the 140 Conference. He said that even if you have only 1 follower, that is 1 person that cares about what you have to say. Just like I tell my friends when their boyfriends dump them, “you're better off without them.” So if people are unfollowing us, that's a blessing because then we are not giving our energy to people that don't appreciate it, same as when we unfollow them.

Anyway, I love all your hats and I, like Chris, am not only proud to follow you, I'm proud that you follow me. (If you still do, I better check – ha ha)

Love,
Cathleen
http://netvibes.com/monikahardy monika hardy

gosh – expecting reciprocal behavior smacks in the face of the value of relationships.
the value is in the giving. if we’re worried about what we’re receiving – we’re missing it.
and catering to our wish is more of a disservice – it’s reinforcing the false pleasure of receiving.

nice post. thanks to all for sharing insight.
http://www.MesaBlogger.com @Takuya_Hikichi

It’s more awkward to unfollow someone you know but don’t like her updates. I ended up doing it after seeing this person as the “only one” showing up on my Twitter page because she tweets every other minute. I couldn’t see anyone else’s tweets. After all, it’s only Twitter and if someone has a problem with it,
Anonymous

we should’t excpect reciprocity. it is crap. if you have more insights, ideas, experiences, or simply more content than most people, it is natural you will have kore followers. you shouldn’t follow back everyone, just whoever you are interested. if you are not interested in me, I don’t want you to follow me, i don’t care actually if you follow me. i follow you not because you follow me, but because i have a selfish interest in what you say. this “etiquette” you mention is insane, forget about it. just follow whoever you find interesting and are able to keep up with.
Anonymous

This is an interesting issue and it’s one I encounter about ten times a day. Your entire book, “Trust Agents,” in fact, talks about building and leveraging trust and that seems to me to be at the crux of this issue. It’s likely that when someone follows you or friends you, they know you. They have either heard of you or they can quickly get up to speed. And yet, you may be at a much bigger disadvantage when trying to learn about others. And when would you find the time to get up to speed with a high volume of people in a short span of time? It’s tricky, right?

Here’s the thing, for me. I don’t only need to trust people. Trust comes last. I need to:
A. Know them or at least know of them
B. Like them or at least know others who like them enough that I know that they think I would also like the person
C. And then have rapport with the person that leads to eventual trust

So, for me, if I invite you to read Get Known and you say, Wow, hey, thanks. Now can you read my/join my/etc. etc.
That depends. Do I…
A. Know you…?
B. Like you…?
C. Trust you?
If none of the above, it’s very unlikely that I will read/join/etc. your thing. At least not the first time around. You never know, in the meantime, I might get to know you, get to like you, and get to trust you. And if I do. I will.

I trust my gut, and it takes a lot more than smooth social networking to get past my gut. It takes trust. Which for me = respect. And I almost never lose respect for someone once I come to respect them b/c I don’t give away my respect cheaply. I also expect that the onus is on me to earn others’ respect.

For me, that’s keeping things real…online and anywhere else.

Thanks for asking, Chris!
http://detroit.fwix.com Jamie Favreau

In some situations I would expect reciprocity but if you don’t have common interests then I don’t think you should join everything on the planet.

I was trying to friend my cousin on facebook to jump start a friendship but she isn’t working with me. We aren’t very close and I saw this as an opportunity to be involved in each other’s lives.

I also don’t understand on Twitter when someone start’s DMing you and doesn’t follow you back? OK then don’t DM someone. I am ok with you NOT following me just don’t DM me.

People are fickle and you can’t please everyone all the time. You just learn from the experiences and move on!
CathleenRitt

Seth,

Thanks so much. I think Chris does a great job of bringing these questions out in the open and having us puzzle it out with him. He helped me a few years ago when I had maybe 30 followers. I got a DM from a guy to let me know he was breaking up with me as a follower. “you're a nice girl…” I was traumatized. That's taking the real world too far, a silent unfollow was all that was needed. Glad this post introduced us.
Anonymous

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http://www.socialmarketability.com Monique Wade Sno

I think the you should question the motives of this person that piped back at you. Did they really want to get to know you in the first place? Probably not. If you are networking online, I think it’s interesting to ponder if you would truly, eventually want to meet in-person. I don’t autofollow anymore because I want to build quality relationships, and meaningful interactions.

The whole idea of reciprocity reminds me of a story. . .
A friend of mine was having a terrible time with her allergies and needed a little extra to work with her neti pot. I went by the natural foods store and picked up some Golden Seal extract for her and brought it to her house. Soon as I came over and gave it to her, she’s like rumaging through her purse trying to find some cash to reimburse me for the extract. I said to her, “What are you doing?” She’s like, “I’m looking for some money to give you.” I said, “Why I never said I wanted any money for this. Why can’t I give you something without expecting something in return and that be acceptable?” I think the same thing applies in social media give for the joy of giving. Share for the joy of sharing.
Anonymous

The problem is that we’ve set our emotions on a throne and made them King.

“Don’t offend, always reciprocate, be politically correct, neutralize the deposition, etc.” – these prerequisites govern the everyday thoughts, speech, and behaviors of so many people online and offline.

And God forbid that we not adhere to the selfish guidelines of “for every action there should be an equal reaction” within social circles – or else people start acting like a bunch of five-year-olds when their expectations are not met.

Here’s a simple solution to those who cannot accept a “no”
1. Reset your expectations
2. Stop acting like a child
3. De-throne your emotions
http://enterthelaughter.com Marti_L

Cathleen, you are a doll – of course I'm still following you! I deeply appreciate your reply and take your comments to heart, especially, “some of these relationships aren't as real as you think or hope they might be unfortunately”.

I love the comment you mentioned by Gary Vee. I will try to remember all of this wonderful commentary the next time I feel a little blue about losing a follower.

Wishing you all the best on your book, hon! Thank you for your reply and wonderful attitude!
http://twitter.com/ez2gogreen maria green

Really?? I mean you really don’t know? What would it actually cost you to become a fan of this club? Would it be against your moral conscious to have it set on a side bar in your profile so that others who net-work with you will see it? If it doesn’t cost you anything in moral distractions or in actual time spent then why not add to your network and help someone else along? I could see a reason for you to quiver if it meant that you were to spend any amount of time other than the microsecond it would take to push “accept”. Why is it so difficult to understand the bottom line in social networking?
http://www.livinghalffull.com/ Peter Mis

Chris,

The reason I use Twitter is that I hope to connect with people from whom I can learn something. If they find my content of value, I’d love for them to follow me back.

I am extremely new at Twitter, but I can see that ego looks like it’s a huge factor to many of the Twitter users. Apparently, importance in the Twitter world is tied to the number of people following or being followed. The more of either, the more important the person believes themselves to be. Newbies like me were at first impressed with large numbers of followers following certain people; I soon discovered that quantity has nothing to do with quality.

I am a member of several groups and organizations, but will only join in if I feel I can make a contribution and make the group stronger. If I can’t, then I won’t. It has ruffled some feathers, but if the goal is to make the group as strong as possible, logic dictates that I am not the one to join the group if I can’t make it better.

I would imagine that having you in a group would add a certain cache to the group. You joining the real estate group suddenly makes it a more important group, having attracted a member who has over 87,000 people following him. That makes it much easier to recruit other to join the group, with your membership serving as a de facto endorsement of the group. If the group’s juvenile response to your turning them down is any indication of the group’s leadership, that alone should make you feel good about your decision not to reciprocate.

Even if he does buy your book.
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http://www.philsforum.com PhilWrzesinski

Sue Anne, it is sometimes hard to understand, but when I read Chris' post, I could feel his frustration, just as I do when someone threatens my business. The vast majority of requests, however, are from people like you, considerate and understanding. And I understand your/their position. It is tough soliciting for money and geting turned down regularly.

It is the people who expect me to give solely because they shop at my store, and then threaten to take away that business if I don't give that cause the frustration. We are in the business of smiles. And there are no smiles in an encounter like this. Fortunately, because of our policy and because most people are kind and compassionate, these frustrations are few and far between. But reading this post brought them back to the forefront.
Peter Weissenstein

Chris –
I think that since the 1980′s many people do expect ‘quid pro quo’ and don’t get the concept of what the internet was meant to be. Whether it is fair to “blame” it on business with the idea of “Hey – here’s something new – let’s monetize it” or accept that as part of the natural shakedown of a new-ish technology or subset is always the question. Those of us who want to do something with more of the “pay it forward” mentality or the idea of doing for the sake of doing and not with the idea of “what’s in it for me?” are rarer than we’d like to believe. It’s just that we seem to all come together in groups and meet – whether at conferences like 140 or by interacting online. Good discussion to have over coffee when I come to Boston or if you make it out to Springfield or the Berkshires. I for one am trimming down my FB contacts only to people I have met or interacted with. LinkedIN I am an open networker (and a lot of my LinkedIN contacts have friended me on FB. I posted on my FB account recently that I’m doing housecleaning and so far have trimmed quite a few. Now I’m down to the ones where I have to research to see who all our mutual friends are. Twitter – I follow those that interest me and if it’s information overload or my interests change I stop following them – but I don’t block anyone from following me. If they are that interested by what I have to say so be it!
Anonymous

Interesting question. Social media has removed a lot of the barriers of traditional networking and we are still discovering the new rules and etiquette to follow. Having you, rather than me as a member, would certainly add more of a credibility factor to the invitee. Ah, but you did say it isn’t all about you. I usually say yes to an invite if it fits what I have an interest in or adds value not because there is a need to reciprocate. I have experienced sending out an invite that is not accepted, but I don’t take it personally.

Do you ever thing about how it could dulute or compromise your personal brand?
Pingback: Weekly Recap | J.M.A. Daily
http://www.n2growth.com/blog mikemyatt

Hi Chris:

I don’t follow everyone who follows me, buys my books, attends my webcasts, subscribes to my blog, etc. I’ve always viewed following someone as a “choice” and not a “requirement”. I appreciate all those who follow me, and do what I can to add value through our interactions, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll always follow back.
http://www.kherize5.com Suzanne Vara

Chris

You bring up such an interesting point here which has sparked a lot of comments.

My take on this is that people tend to treat social media differently than traditional media, as it relates to relationships. In the real world would you be friends with over 50K people. Not likely. Even in social media can you ever really relate and engage with that many people?

When we meet people face to face we can get a vibe off them and make the decision to continue a conversation/relationship. Social media most of the time does not give that immediate vibe. The media tends to sensationalize social media and base who your credibilty by how many people are your followers.

Expecting something in return is a first class ticket to nowhere. I think that when you expect back you almost lose respect for the person and sight of why you did it in the first place. If we go through life doing for others and expecting something back defeats the purpose of ever doing anything for anyone.

Just my take. Great thought provoking post!

Suzanne Vara/Lvadgal
http://alasdairmunn.com ajmunn

Nice Chris, you have inspired some wonderful comments, great further reading suggestions and interesting discussions with tis post. It is interesting how different social networks have different rules and personalities. Added to every-ones own unique motivators, personalities and objectives, the lines blur.
Shared values and norms are strong within a family. The shared connections are still strong within communities getting weaker as we expand out to different socio-economic groupings, culture, belief systems etc. Amongst other things, our frame of reference changes. Today’s connected world changes the dynamic and brings together a myriad of cultures, beliefs and individuals, each with their own frames of reference.
I love the general theme here of being true to yourself, your values and your objectives, while still respecting the rights and opinions of others. Respecting those rights and opinions does not mean you have to agree with them, or follow them just as they should respect your right to choose not to.
http://twitter.com/kevinpalmer Kevin Palmer

There is a little more to consider than just reciprocal behavior here. I think there are other layers that we need to look at, specifically your fame and following versus theirs.

First we have to consider your social level in this transaction and what you wanted from this person.

You are Chris Brogan, you have massive social proof that you should be listened to based off of members of that page, twitter, subscribers, etc. You have achieved some level of fame in this space (deservedly so) and are well liked. When you ask people to join a page they are going to for the most part even if they might not have time to participate on it or even have that much interest in it because of who you are.

When the person joins this is going to be a pretty one sided relationship. Sure you invited them to that page because you think they will gain from it BUT the purpose of the page is to essentially promote a book. By him/her joining the page it notifies his/her followers/friends and you may pick up more people because of that which leads to more people following the page. (Which will conceivably lead to more book sales.)

On the other hand you have someone without the social proof, following, or level of fame you have. They extend the invitation to their page to you, which you have no interest in. You combine your lack of interest with their lack of social proof and you have a situation where you aren’t going to follow it.

You cut off their ability to get their page noticed by your friends and the relationship can be perceived as rather one sided. They are either going to become upset, understand the situation, or not care either way. In your case this situation is probably happening dozens to possibly hundreds of times a day. What can you do about it, how can you handle it?

If you have a follower that retweets every one of your posts or joins whatever group/page you want them to and then they ask you to retweet something because they have been a loyal follower and have promoted everything you have put out there do you on some level owe them? If you do that for one person are you going to do that for everyone that comes calling? How much time is this going to consume? If you refuse do you start to look self centered? Does it damage your relationship with them or their followers?

Your fame and standing in this space has a major impact in this conversation, it is totally different than how someone with 120 followers has to deal with because of the sheer amount of people you would have to deal with. How you interact with people when you have 60 followers versus 60,000 follower is vastly different. The thing is when you grow and get to that size relationships turn more one sided, more broadcast oriented, and it is hard for people with that small following to understand that your ability to interact with them is vastly different with their ability.

I think it is a much tougher situation than just the question of reciprocating or not.

http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

But if it doesn’t interest me, do I fake follow it so that I won’t look like a snob? That doesn’t seem fun/fair/reasonable. It’s also non sustainable.

Thoughts?

http://dannybrown.me Danny Brown

Wouldn’t this (fake follow being unfair) be the same as following everyone using an automated tool like SocialToo, and then unfollowing afterward when you realize they’re not your mix? Someone gets notified they have a new follow, only to realize afterward it was automated. Which then makes them fell less “interesting”?
Peter Weissenstein

Chris – I think that fake following would be tantamount to hiring someone to do all your tweets or your blog in your name. You aren’t being a snob since you did not ask them to follow you in the first place. If anyone is concerned about the person’s feelings I suppose you could always have a “boilerlplate I’m sorry but at this time I am not able to follow you back” template that you can go to their page and post or, a more senstitive way of doing it, might be to put something on the About Me section of your Twitter home page stating that you do not follow everyone back and while no offense is meant you are selective about whom you follow because of the amount of information you receive. The reality is that you don’t need to read 10000 retweets of the same thing although that happens once in a while. Just FWIW.
http://www.wildscotsman.com/jeff Wild_Scotsman

The answer is, “NO”. If people make the conscious choice to “follow” you on twitter or any medium they do so out of their own interest. If they are looking to gain some kind of validation than they need to do the due diligence to gain such validation (if possible) but realize that it is not guarenteed.

For example:
I can get a gym membership but after one year not look any different. The act of getting the membership does not change my level of fitness or make me a world class bodybuilder. I can work out for a year and become more fit but still not be a bodybuilder, however, I may get to know everyone at the gym. I have achieved my goal of becoming a more healthy person.

If a person follows your lead, buys your books, and attends the seminars they may never be a guru or get your validation, however, they might be more prosperous and be seen as a success in the circles they travel.

Cheers,

Jeff
http://twitter.com/kevinpalmer Kevin Palmer

I totally agree that it isn’t fair/fun/reasonable. It seems like a situation where you can’t win on a few levels. On the one hand if people see their relationship as being one sided with you because you don’t always have that personal interaction with them or aren’t “returning the favor” then you can be perceived as selfish.Then on the other hand if you just blindly join and do whatever to please people you not only waste your time but your interaction stops being genuine. (wow look Chris is a fan of 150,000 facebook pages!!)

Neither situation is really fair or honestly even what you are doing but it is possibly the perception on some level. The reason this perception comes about is because I think that people have THEIR use of social media as a knowledge base and place the same standards, morals, and objectives onto you or other large people which is unfair.

I’ve personally run into this on certain social networks and have seen other people run into it. I think what happens is that the people that have the larger profile and the following have to sacrifice the potential reaction on either side by using the tool the way THEY want to and how THEY are going to enjoy it. I think you are pretty transparent in explaining how you use these sites but perhaps people need to be educated on the differences between how you use the tools now versus how you used them years ago.

I just find this interesting because there are so many levels to this. You have public perception, relationships, logistics, attitude, philosophy, and popularity issues all rolled into one situation.

http://www.you-brand.de Achim

Chris, that’s a tough and multi-faceted one :-)

A major challenge in the online world is that we can’t use many of our senses in determining whether we like a person or not. In the ‘real’ world we do that with our eyes (do we like what we see?), with our ears (do we like what we hear – the content as well as the voice itself?) and to a certain degree with our nose (do we like what we smell?). Furthermore we have learned to subconsciously decode body language. This often happens before we actually start a conversation to get to know the person and find out whether we’re on the same wavelength.

Online we can’t use these senses: We can only look at profile pictures, we can’t really listen, we don’t smell a thing and can’t decode body language. We have a problem = our traditional decision matrix is pretty empty.

What do we do? We look for other sets of information to help us decide: Do we have friends in common? Do we share interests? Are we in the same groups? Some people try the ‘follow me, follow you’ (Wasn’t that a big Genesis hit in the late 70ies??) approach. Still we have the uncomfortable feeling of not being able to trust our own judgment 100%, as this is a trial and error process. Invitations to join groups or causes are part of that process. We should look at it as a possibility to find out more about the person we ‘think’ we might like and not be offended if that person turns down the invitation. After all we got to know that person a bit better by finding out something that he/she is obviously not interested in – i.e. the topic of our invitation. It doesn’t mean that the person doesn’t like us, it doesn’t mean that we have nothing in common. It just means that one particular topic is not as high on his/her priority list as it is on ours. Nothing wrong with that.

Relationships are not established in seconds or minutes, not even online. We need to give it time: time to find out more about the real person, time to learn about his/her priorities.

Achim
Anonymous

Great, thought provoking post – thanks!

I subscribe to the theory, and always have, that when you are generous in supporting others, your generosity will be repaid in some way, at some time, and not necessarily directly. The criteria I use is simple – if you are doing something that I think is cool, worthwhile, interesting, etc – I am going to share it with other people. And, I won’t be watching for the “return” favor – that’s not the way to play the game of life, in my opinion. And, frankly, I don’t have time to keep “score” – too many other interesting things out there that I want to read about, learn, share…
http://www.reachpersonalbranding.com williamarruda

Hi Chris,

It seems for some, social media is about quantity and not quality. They want to have the most Facebook friends or the largest following on Twitter. So if they follow you and you don’t follow them back or they sign up for your newsletter and you don’t reciprocate, they feel they are missing out on the opportunity to increase their followers by one.

It is important to remember in networking (whether virtual or real) quality trumps quantity. It’s hard to focus on quality relationships when you hear that Oprah and Ashton Kutcher are in a race to get the most Twitter Followers, but we all have to focus on our target audiences and build strong connections with those who are truly interested in what we have to offer.

Best.
William
http://www.williamarruda.com

http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

To me, the only number I care about is “how many people are here to actually build a relationship?”

stuartfeigley

What about the thought that a great idea can come from anywhere? If you're really picky about who you follow, you can miss out on a lot of great ideas/thoughts.

That's why I love Tweetdeck. I can segment those who I follow (ad folks, favorites, social media folks, etc.) into columns. The key for anyone I follow is this … if he/she tweets stuff I find interesting/helpful/etc., they get moved to a column that has fewer people in it. Those I read and interact with regularly. The “All Friends” column gets scanned when I have time and there's less interaction.
http://twitter.com/shelhorowitz Shel Horowitz

I use different guidelines in different media. In FB, I’ll accept almost any friend request that has reasonable content on the profile page, try to figure out why they friended me, and categorize into a friend list such as marketer, environmentalist, actual friend, etc.

In Twitter, where I can’t keep up with the people I’m already following, I don’t auto-follow back. I don’t want to clutter my feed with posts that don’t interest me. I follow when I see interesting RTs, sometimes from follow Friday links form people I trust. And every week I do try to visit a few profile pages of people following me, and I follow about half of those. But if someone’s page is all about e.g., online gaming, which doesn’t interest me at all, won’t follow even if the content is high-quality…because it’s not relevant for me. If they choose to unfollow, so be it. I like to think people follow me because I provide genuine value, and not just to get their numbers up.

This is really an extension of the mindless crosslink campaigns that have gone on for years. I have a template email response to these folks; if they meet the criteria I outline and point it out in a follow-up email, they get the link. Maybe 1 in 30 actually do this.

http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

Ah yes, crosslinks. I remember the days. You don’t (at least I haven’t) hear about those as much these days. Are they still alive but hidden from view?

http://maximumcustomerexperience.com/ Kelly

I get at least a request or two a week. If I don’t know them (which is 100% of them, so far) I toss them straight to spam. Ick.

http://www.alyssonfergison.com Alysson

This is a tricky question for many, as we have to be careful not to inadvertently alienate people in the online arena. However, it’s also very important to choose carefully those with whom we associate ourselves online. That’s no less an important decision online than it is in real life.

I wrote a post specific to the subject of Twitter following a while back (http://www.seoaly.com/twitter-follow-policy/) that received responses ranging from “I completely agree…” to “You’re an elitist snob…”.

I use the analogy of associating with known criminals. If the police see you day in and day out surrounding yourself with known felons, the chances of them believing you’re engaged in some criminal activity goes up exponentially – whether you are or not is somewhat irrelevant…that’s the perception. And, for many, their perception is the only reality they will ever know.
http://twitter.com/Mossappeal Mossappeal

I follow @hardaway on Twitter, and read her blog today, which led me back to my Gold Standard, Chris, and this amazing discussion.

I think Francine's blog and quote from it, above, summed it up really well, and made me feel better as a Twitter Toddler, that I have been selective in my following and following back. But I was amused to find myself “hurt” when I dropped about 30 followers in one day without a clue. How could I feel any emotion about that when I pretty much have no idea who most of those tweeps even are? Yet, it's easy to turn it into a popularity contest.
@sanderssays posted a question last week asking if you are “patient enuf to build an organic following via good tweeting & targeted follows? Or do U need social steroids?” I answered I was trying to “go 'organic' all the way. Tortoise and Hare tweeting!”
His reply? “Ambitious!”
Why? I know I as a marketer I should aim for a big, broad following, but I'm going with quality over quantity. For now.
Until I get earn a whole entourage and get a SM S-head. (See my explanation on confusing one's personal brand vs. social media personae: http://mosshysteria.blogspot.com/2009/03/you-mi… )
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http://www.hooversbiz.com/ TimWalker

Precisely, Chris. :)

Even if you expanded the scope from all the hours you *bill* to the grand total of hours you *work* (incl. blogging, traveling, etc.), it's *still* presumptuous of anyone to think that their purchase of your book — which brings you a couple of bucks in royalties — in any way obliges you to give them an hour of your undivided attention.
http://socialnetworkinglifestyle.com/blog Timothy Carter

In this CRAZE of late with the hype to get thousands of followers to establish yourself as an expert from those tweets to get 1000 followers in a day or software programs used by many people (including the gurus and experts who've popped up this year on Twitter) to create a false sense of authority.

I think it would be a great post Chris to share that story and really how it would refreshingly stand apart from these experts of late who are trying to take the shortcuts to real success & authority in the industry.
http://socialnetworkinglifestyle.com/blog Timothy Carter

Hey Chris, when it comes to Facebook, you’ll come to find to not feel awkward about it & get used to ignoring or declining requests because Facebook gives people the opportunity to basically spam invite people. There are many people out there who have taught that on Facebook, the more people you invite, the more people will join.

I only join groups that I think will be of value to me personally and will only invite people to places that I think will be of value to them to be a part of.

But an even better thought is create a fan page for yourself and use your personal FB profile for your personal connections. The fan page give you a bit more flexibility on doing stuff than your personal page…PLUS, the added bonus of not getting invited to all the groups, apps, events, etc.
http://twitter.com/ftoolan Fran Toolan

Chris,

in this ‘new’ social networking world, I don’t believe that because someone follows you, or asks you to be their friend, or asks you to join a group that you necessarily have to. I certainly don’t think you need to feel guilty about saying ‘no’.

Let me put it to you this way… are the people asking for your connection going to be trust agents? if not, then i think it’s perfectly fine to say no.

you are certainly feeling valid anxiety as these people are or could be “customers” or “readers”, and no one wants to piss them off. However, your personal integrity and network is more important.

I – who have very little following – have turned down many requests from people I do not know. I almost never follow people on twitter who follow me – unless I know them, or they have RT’d something, or responded to one of my tweets (and I thought it was worthwhile).

you will notice that I’ve never expected you to “friend” me, or follow me, even though we have many overlapping interests and live within 5 miles of each other.

don’t worry about sychophants or people who want to use your own hard earned rep as their own. good luck.
http://soupofmedia.com/ Magdalena Georgieva

We definitely expect reciprocal behavior. As the number of social networks and groups out there grows, however, people will start getting more selective. If I cannot contribute value to a network, why be in it?
http://twitter.com/dotcalm dotcalm / Veronika F

Wow, so he engaged you in a conversation because he wanted to interact and expected you to be equally as interested in what he had to say? Then he went in for the “guilt-follow”?
I'm pretty much the opposite – I assume that many of the people I meet on twitter are very successful and may not have time for me – then I'm honored when they follow – and even more honored when someone like @ScottMonty or @skydiver actually replies to me!
Great answer Cathleen, and thanks Seth for sharing!
V-
Anonymous

The idea of “quid pro quo” must show an agreement or understanding of mutual and equal benefit. There is also the matter of choice. If the benefit is not mutual, then why does there need to be such an agreement?

In your statement Chris, if you had too much going on or have spread yourself too thin at the time to commit to yet another social media vector, the other party needs to respect that decision and not be passive-agressive in chiding you for declining. IMHO, that shows a the selfish nature of that person’s request in the first place. This leads me to believe that in fact, if you had accepted the invitation, your agreement would not have been truly “Quid pro quo” at all. Perhaps that individual was interested more in the cache of your name if associated with this new social media vector and not really interested in a mutual and equal exchange of ideas.
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Jeffrey

The interaction you describe depends on two points of view – yours and his. There is no right or wrong in this world – some people work very well giving and taking one for the other. Whereas – evidence may suggest the better relationship is to give without expecting anything in return whether you talk about Seth Gordon’s permission marketing, a parent to a kid or any of our holy figures. Its true though – not feeling guilty when someone has done something for you is not an easy thing to get over. Perhaps you forget – did you expect him to buy your book? If he didn’t would you think any less of him? Depending on your point of view you have an answer. In the end, I say stick to your guns – there is no way of pleasing everyone in this world – if you try you will need your laptop to keep track of all the ways you need to change in order to satisfy someone else..yikes. Good luck and thanks for the post.
http://michaelschechter.me MSchechter

Great post and I see a lot of this lately. It is almost becoming like link swapping (I’ll fan your page if you fan mine). That being said, I think it is OK to say no as long as you don’t mind or get frustrated that people are asking. I assume you get this a lot as people are likely not always asking you to be interested in their product, but more interested in how they use social tools for products that are likely outside your interest level.

I am fairly sure I suggested you become a fan of our page (not because I think you have immense interest in pearls, but because hopefully one day we manage to do something different enough in our promotion to capture the attention of people who do what you do). That being said, it made perfect sense that it wasn’t of interest for you and could never fault you or anyone for that. It is often our job to ask and your right to say no. FB calls them Page Suggestions for a reason.

Anyone who would fault you for that is just asking too much!

P.S. I will still buy your book (no parting shot intended, just fact)
Anonymous

Chris,

I will say upfront I am writing this wihtout reading all of the comments. I believe one of the larger problems with social media (and the new communication paradigm???) is that people do not respect who they are interacting with as they would ahve to on the ohone or in person. If you called me on the phone and suggested Trust Agents might be useful to me I would explore the possibility and either accept or decline to engage in buying the book or discussing the concept.

At that point, I might suggest you could find value in one of our Enterprise 2.0 webinars and you might do the same. I would have NO expeectation you would tell all of your friends about our webinar, as you would have no expectation that I would buy your book if I found the ssubject matter unhelpful (not the case).

Exchange completed, no false expectations. In social media, the exchange goes like this. You post a link, Facebook page and Twitter about Trust Agents. Many people retweet, go to the Facebook page, comment on how great the concept is and, perhaps, buy the book, or not, for no reason other than to accrue the goodwill. They have now, in their mind, established a quid pro quo relationship that you will take their next tweet, Facebook page announcement or webinar/book announcement and forward it etc.

Why? Because we teach them that’s how it’s done. Participate, retweet, provide value, and others will reciprocate. Whether it is 100 or 1 million followers they all expect that mutual support for what is important to them, not what is important to you.

A rude monster, lacking the civility created by true intimacy, perpetuated by relative anonymity, focused on “me”.
http://twitter.com/sticky_t Tanya Marcy

It’s amazing how many people expect equal treatment/exchange on the Internet, isn’t it? I think in the beginning, we all tend to fall into that trap (I know I started to). But then I thought – wait a minute, do I really expect someone I friend/follow to do the same for me?

Then it got me thinking…it’s not really a matter of “Oh, this person doesn’t like me” or something of that sort, and we can certainly choose to get stuck in that mentality, but I like to think it’s more of a “what can this person do for me?”

If I follow/friend someone on a social media site, it’s because they have something (or are someone) that appeals to me – a music/artist band that livens up my day, a friend I’ve known for a long time, an actor/artist/writer/comedian/insert other profession here that speaks to me…in some way, whether small or big, I’ve made them a part of my life. But, and people need to really think about this – does that necessarily mean that I am a part of their life?

Maybe, maybe not. But I find sticking to this mindset is what keeps feelings from getting hurt. And who knows? Maybe in the future you’ll become part of their life.

Really great point to bring up though. Keeps you thinking. :)
http://twitter.com/sticky_t Tanya Marcy

It’s amazing how many people expect equal treatment/exchange on the Internet, isn’t it? I think in the beginning, we all tend to fall into that trap (I know I started to). But then I thought – wait a minute, do I really expect someone I friend/follow to do the same for me?

Then it got me thinking…it’s not really a matter of “Oh, this person doesn’t like me” or something of that sort, and we can certainly choose to get stuck in that mentality, but I like to think it’s more of a “what can this person do for me?”

If I follow/friend someone on a social media site, it’s because they have something (or are someone) that appeals to me – a music/artist band that livens up my day, a friend I’ve known for a long time, an actor/artist/writer/comedian/insert other profession here that speaks to me…in some way, whether small or big, I’ve made them a part of my life. But, and people need to really think about this – does that necessarily mean that I am a part of their life?

Maybe, maybe not. But I find sticking to this mindset is what keeps feelings from getting hurt. And who knows? Maybe in the future you’ll become part of their life.

Really great point to bring up though. Keeps you thinking. :)
http://www.insightgrants.com/ Rosalie Mangino-Crandall

I agree. Maybe I'm taking the wrong view here, but I think it's important to connect only with things that interest or are otherwise of value to you. Otherwise it's all just numbers and there's no real commitment to any of it, which makes building relationships a challenge. I hope I don't upset anyone, but I try to only follow people I feel I can (and want) to keep up with. I probably don't really “get” social media like I should in terms of its greater implications for relationship-building and business, but I just don't understand the value to the individual in following more things than can actually be read.

Quid Pro No

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