From the Just When You Think You Understand Social Media Department... - Pathfinder Careers

From the Just When You Think You Understand Social Media Department... - Pathfinder Careers From the Just When You Think You Understand Social Media Department I have a confession to makeIve acting like the back-end of a horse lately. There. I said it. Publicly. What prompted this admission? Well, other than I really was acting like the business end of a horse, I feel really bad. Horrible, in fact.  I thought I understood the rules of engagement social media fairly well, but it turns out that in one respect, I was the one behaving badly. So heres the story: As an early adopter of many social media platforms, I have built a fairly robust network over the past years, especially on LinkedIn. But I was stuck on remaining a closed networker, and getting frustrated by an ever-increasing number of requests to connect from people I didnt know. As a career management coach and frequent speaker, Ive always told my clients and audience to include a personalized message to people when asking to connect after all, I would love to hear how I could help them.  But my patience was wearing thin with people Ive never met before indicating that they were a Friend  (how on earth did they decide that?) while only including the standard default greeting: I would like to add you to my LinkedIn network.  What? I  didnt want to be simply collected as another notch on someone elses belt! What really irked me was that while  I do consider myself in general to be a friendly person, I was offended that people who did not know me said I was their friend, and to me, that seemed to be stretching the truth. And so, bent on a path of educating people, I started telling them that. Ouch.  That goes into the #Fail file I got roundly chastised by someone who actually took the time to respond which got me thinking SHOULD I be connecting to everyone who reaches out to me even if they use the default greeting? And as it turns out, oftentimes, there isnt any other way to indicate a connection to someone except as a Friend so these requests might not be so much purposeful misrepresentations than limitations imposed by LinkedIn. So I reached out to my resume writing colleagues and asked them for a reality check is it best to be closed or open networker? The response was  unanimous: Be an open networker!   In fact, one of my friends, Julie Walraven of Design Resumes, wrote a blog post about my inquiry and lined out a very clear case of the advantages of being open to networking with anyone. Shocked, I realized with absolute horror that I have been effectively slamming the door in peoples faces. I am going to try and send a note to those folks that I was closed off to I dont expect much of a response, if any.  The damage is already done. But what I will do is be an open networker from this point forward and accept any and all requests that I get. As one resume writer pointed out, being connected is a starting point for the person to get to know you better.  And if you get a request from someone you arent that familiar with in your network, take the time to schedule coffee or a phone call with them to build rapport before passing on their request. My lesson learned: open the door as much as possible; its when you slam the door shut that you actually are shutting yourself off.  Very powerful lesson indeed.