The word “friend” has taken on a whole new meaning in these days of social networking. Pownce is very endearing about it: “RandomStranger wants to be your friend!” Aww, that’s so sweet, really. Facebook is much more suspicious: “We need to confirm that you are, in fact, friends with CrazyStalker”.

Someone called me a social networking whore the other day because I have so many people on my contact lists. He implied that I add people indiscriminately because of some deep hidden need to have friends. But looking over my lists of contacts, I do in fact generally know the people I’ve added. Really. I’m not trying to make up for a scarred and bitter friendless childhood. All that much.

If you’re looking to add friends (not necessarily me, the scarred and bitter one) who you don’t know well to your social networking circles, I have some tips that might help make your friendships successful and long lasting rather than end before they begin in a tragic “I do not even know this person” Facebook-style rejection.

• Be selective: Don’t upload your contact list and randomly add everyone unless you want to build your network with your mother-in-law’s best friend from high school and that guy who once emailed you with his safe and effective viagra-like homeopathic remedies. Or maybe that’s what you’re going for. Who am I to judge?
• Remind me: If you’ve met the person you’re adding, but possibly just the one time in passing or in a large crowd, or it was a while ago, remind them of that. We’ve all done a lot of tequila shots been really busy since that last meeting, and if you jog my memory about it, I’ll totally be your BFF.
• Provide context: If you haven’t met the person you’re adding, don’t send the stock invitation. Mention why you’re adding the person even though the two of you haven’t met and you’ve popped up from the crazy blue sky. Good things to say might be:
  1. “We’re both friends with Angelina Jolie (if this is, in fact true; otherwise substitute an actual mutual friend) so clearly I’m good friend stock and not a covert spy who’s looking to use your hidden profile interests to further my nefarious deeds.”
  2. “I read your blog/saw you speak/read your article and like what you had to say about global warming/snowboarding/lolcats”.
  3. “I see you’ve joined these various groups that I too have joined, so perhaps we are interested in the same topics and after all, isn’t that what this social networking craze is all about, to connect people around the world in a global wave of unity and discourse? What, are you going to make the whole thing fall apart because you’re unwilling to talk to someone new?”
  4. “Remember me, your BOSS? You damn well better add me.”

  When I get a request from someone I don’t know, I’m much more likely to add them if they give me a context. Otherwise, I’ll just assume they’re randomly looking for people to ask to Digg their stories or view their hot webcam pics when they’re bored on a Saturday night.

And if you don’t want to always be the one doing all the friending, I recommend making your profiles readily available. That way other people can see where you’re at and ask you to be their friend! And then you can say you don’t even know that person. It can be difficult to search on these sites and who has the time to scroll and scroll and click and add? Well, me if I’m home on my couch watching Buffy, but you might have actual useful things to do with your time.

• My about page lists various social networking profiles I’ve got scattered about.
• Sphinn is a great new place to keep all of your social networking, blog, and forum stuff straight.
• Or you could check out a social networking aggregator.

And that bulleted may have seemed like keyword anchor text stuffing, but hey, look over here! Something shiny!

Happy friending.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 3:13 pm and is filed under Blog, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.