I’ve had soooo many new friend requests over the past two weeks on Facebook. What I find interesting is that only a handful of these people reached out to actually be a ‘friend’.
I accepted some of these friend requests after looking at their profiles, seeing that we had mutual friends in common, and thinking that they seemed like someone I might friend in real life. (Don’t worry, I don’t just accept friend requests from anyone…plus I knew there was something going on in one of the business groups I’m in that spurred this.)
Others are still hanging out there. They haven’t taken the time to even begin to connect with me.
Still others sent me a cold pitch right away and I deleted them, because they weren’t even interested in learning anything about me to even know if I fit their ideal client or not…they didn’t seem to really care.
And then there are the times I am on the reaching-out end. The times when I reach out because I thought they sounded interesting. Maybe I knew that they did something business-wise or do-good-wise and I wanted to talk with them about it. I wanted to learn more. I wanted to think there could really be potential for a real friendship, even if I didn’t take the first step. (And if I did initiate it I tried to start a genuine conversation to get to know the person more. I truly believe in forming relationships in business, not just business relationships.)
So back to my story…
I accepted some of these requests and waited for them to start the conversation (because that’s what I do when I try to start a relationship.)
And… nothing.
Others I waited and then reached out with a simple ‘hello’ after a few days. Others I’m just waiting on to see what happens next.
This whole ‘experiment’ is interesting to me because I wonder, if this was real life, would I be making friends this way? I think to a certain extent *maybe* I would…depending on the situation in which I met them. I mean, its hard to make friends as a mom, so sometimes you take a chance and it turns into something wonderful, BFFs for life…
I’m curious if you are experiencing this ‘new’ way of starting conversations in the DMs by way of friend requests (as so many coaches are teaching these days.) Is there a science to it? Do you enjoy it? Is it working for you? Is this part of a larger strategy that some are missing out on executing?
