New Friends Are Ripe For The Picking

It’s so easy today, isn’t it?  We’re all opening up. Sharing more.

A lot of low hanging fruit.  Because social media sites have helped to weigh down the branches.  Lowering the fruit to eye level.

No more tippy toes.

We are building more profiles.  Uploading photos.  Telling the world about our new relationships and new jobs. Sharing videos about our lives.

Are you doing that?

If you are, the world will open its arms to you.

Because your openness will allow others to reciprocate.  Creating a vacuum that will bring others on board.

Even the staunch defenders of their personal privacy are starting to jump on board.  They can’t help themsleves.

Recently a friend of mine who chose to ignore Facebook for years just signed up.  And within a few days, he’s re-connected with over 100 friends.

Now he just needs to go to step two. The tougher step of actively reaching out to new people.

It’s one thing to reach out to family and friends on Facebook, former c0-workers on LinkedIn, or your more progressive friends actively using Twitter.  It’s another to then begin reaching out to brand new people.

• People who are asking for help in a LinkedIn group discussion
• People who tweeted something you found interesting on Twitter
• People who posted a YouTube video that made you laugh out loud

You reach out by leaving a comment on their blog. Sending a personalized LinkedIn invite. Re-tweeting a post or original tweet with a personal reaction.

And then you get out in the community (yes, out of the house) and you meet these people.  All the online goodwill translates nicely when you meet in person.  And you find that often people are nicer than their online personality.  You see, they are looking to meet new people too.

Are there risks in all of this?  Of course.

Some people will ignore you.  They’ll respond with far less enthusiasm than you. And while it never feels good to be ignored, you have the choice to ignore that reaction and just focus on those who, like you, are actively looking to meet new people.

But one word of warning. It takes time. Friendships and social credibility don’t come without some effort.

So identify some people you’d like to be friends with – whether your friendship goals are business or personal – and begin reaching out.  Here’s a simple daily checklist for Twitter that will allow you to identify and slowly start to reach out to a few more people.

If you want to become friends with me, just reach out. 

Photo Credit

Written by: Tim Tyrell-Smith
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Categories: Social Networking