Social Nepotism?

Posted by Dawn Baird, Partner on Sep 22, 2010 in blogging, networking, social media, social networking | 6 comments

I’m sure there is no such term, but I wanted to invoke a hint of “Social Networking” to get your attention.  Did it work?

So, Nepotism?  What is it?

Nepotism is favoritism granted to relatives or friends, with no regard to merit.^[1]

This comes from Wikipedia, natch.  Doesn’t that sound just a wee bit like what we do while collecting Friends, Followers or Connections online?

What has made me self-righteously think of “merit”?

• I was getting Facebook updates from people I have never communicated with, on or offline.  And, I had to click on their name to find out who they were.  Often, they had no website or other employer link, to help me place them.  So, I’ve begun removing them.
• Occasionally, I had someone begin a Chat session, and I’d either little or no idea who they were.  Sometimes these chats were over-familiar in the extreme, bearing in mind I’ve never met either in person, nor had an engaging conversation online.  I’ve begun removing them too.
• My RSS feeds were getting out of control.  Things had to be trimmed back, and the rest organised into sensibly-named folders.
• Increasingly, I have been getting friend requests on Facebook from people I’ve never met, who do not respond to my message saying Hi, and asking where we’ve met.  So, if they’re not willing to engage from the offset, to answer a simple request like that, is there any point in allowing them to take up room on my Friends list?
• My email inbox was becoming a morning torture ritual.  I’m unsubscribing with glee.
• Twitter followers are another story.  Many engage for a few weeks, then lose interest, as they’re not trying to connect with anyone, so tweeting one way like that will bore you very quickly indeed.  The thing is, they’re taking up space on my Followers/Following list.  So, I removed many of these inactive accounts and managed to half my list in an hour.  I didn’t do this automatically, I did it manually, as I preferred to know who I was deleting.
• Honestly, I don’t want distractions of the status updates from people in my Facebook or Twitter streams who I don’t know, some of whom are posting one game notification after another.  Yes, I’m aware you can Hide The Person or Hide This Game.  But, why give yourself the extra effort?

Willy nilly “business” connections

We connect with people willy nilly.  What criteria do we use?  I realise that I may make some enemies by saying this, but I don’t need more friends.  I have friends.  What I need is more business contacts.  I’m trying to run Sensei Learning and Performance, and so business contacts are useful to me.  Sure, some of those people can become really good friends.  I’m not a total mercenary.  But, most won’t.

We need some way of distinguishing who we connect with online, and who we don’t.  My criteria is loosely something like the following:

People who book me

I like to stay in touch with the decision-makers who book me to run workshops, or complete work for them.  I don’t generally work with people I don’t like, so I like to see what they’re up to.

Workshop/seminar attendees

This is particularly the case if we’ve had a conversation around social media during the session, or the workshop was on the topic of online marketing, or something related.

Members of my family or close personal friends

For these people, I communicate through DMs via Twitter of Facebook, or openly if they’re also a business contact and it’s something others might find interesting too.

Networkers

I do as much networking as I can, structured and unstructured, self-organised, or organised by others.  Sometimes I’ll meet someone who I’d like to stay in touch with.  I often stalk look people up before or following a meeting, because I like them and what they’re doing, I like their Twitter stream or blog.  Or, sometimes, darn it, they may just be useful to me some day, because they’re well connected.  Mm-kay?

Competitors

This is what the cool cats call a no-brainer.  Easiest way to do it?  Set up a Group in Tweetdeck or Facebook, and place all your competitors in it.

Then, you can easily browse them at a glance, as part of your ongoing market research.  Or, you may want to set up some Google Alerts, just to see who’s mentioning them and in what context.  (You can set Google Alerts for anything you wish.  I find them extremely useful.)

People I admire, or who inspire me… some of the rockstars

There are a bucket-load of these.  However, I’d like to point out a few.  You may know that I’m addicted to blogging.  I’ve started a few over the last few years.  This is the only public one that has stood the test, perhaps because my soul and guts go into my business.  So, I love to stay connected with bloggers, mainly via Twitter (or RSS).  Here are the ones I can’t do without.

http://gapingvoid.com/

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/

http://www.webdistortion.com/

http://www.justinparks.com/

http://idratherbewriting.com/

http://freelanceswitch.com/

http://www.creativeboom.co.uk/belfast/

And, two for Sunday afternoons…

http://littlepinkkitchen.wordpress.com/

http://welldonefillet.com/

All write with a greater or lesser degree of snark.  I like snark.

I’m not the type that says if you don’t meet offline, it’s not worth it

Don’t misunderstand me.  I have many online contacts who I’ve never met offline, and probably never will, as they live far away, or, our paths are just not likely ever to cross, unless we engineer a meeting.  And, that’s fine.  Connecting online, like with any other type of meeting, can be useful, profitable, enjoyable… one is not better than the other, just different.

So, what do you think?  Do you follow on merit?  Or, do you connect with anyone?

What are your top criteria for deciding who to follow, read or friend?

And, if you need assistance with what I’ve blogged about, get in touch!

Image credit: acme.