¶ Understanding Your Facebook Friends
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies. Friend, a noun, a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection. Typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations. The term Facebook friend has moved from a simple idea to becoming an almost biblical expression, and the term or idea is now globally recognised, certainly in popular culture, as a real thing.
The founding idea back in 2004 was that Facebook could bring people together. Maybe it's done just the opposite, but you can decide. But the very idea of a Facebook friend is also hugely misunderstood. For those of us who wish to develop a better understanding of how people behave on social media, it's important to have our eyes wide open when it comes to this very idea.
we do tend to get too emotionally invested in the idea of a Facebook friend. And however long you've been active on Facebook and social media, during this time you will have gathered and lost friends and followers. Very similar to your offline real world, people enter our lives and people leave our lives and very few stick around forever. This dynamic on Facebook is not that dissimilar.
A Facebook friend in the true sense of the word is simply a connection that you have. They're no different from a contact in your phone. Facebook simply gives you greater visual access to those contacts, their daily lives and exposure to their personal brand and the ability to interact with them. For the vast majority of people you're connected with in this way, it will be a much more distant and often non-existent relationship with very little or zero interaction.
The vast majority of your connections are not thinking about you every day In most cases, they will not invite you to their wedding, nor will they attend your funeral. They probably won't do that favour that you would like them to do today, nor will they take a look at your opportunity or try your products and services just because you want them to.
They can blow hot and they can blow cold with you. They can ignore your messages and at times it will affect you emotionally if you lack the understanding of the human algorithm. You may feel that sometimes they pick you up and put you down, and one day, when the void you fill in their lives becomes filled by another entity, they may even leave you altogether. Have you ever felt this?
My advice is that you must take stock of your real relationships and be grateful for them every day. They're rare. For the most part, these Facebook friends are people you're never going to see. speak to in person, meet or hang out with or go dancing with or go for a meal or drink with or go for long strolls in the park and long walks on the beach and whisper sweet nothings into each other's ears. And it's not just on them. You are equal in this relationship.
These are mostly not real friendships and you must have full clarity of vision if you are to survive the emotional melting pot and rollercoaster that is Facebook and social media. This being said, the key to survival is to respect one thing, that each and every individual who you are connected with on Facebook, on social media, be it friend or follower, We'll all have one thing in common when it comes to you. That is, one day, at some point, they will need what you have.
whether it's practically, financially, or emotionally, that this reason you must love, cherish, and respect your audience just as I do. Because the eternal question is, when that day comes, Will they come to you? Will they remember you? Well, that's down to your branding as we've spoken about in previous chapters. And you know what? One day, you may need them too.
¶ Rebuilding Your Online Warm List
And if they want your business, well, they'll need to listen to this podcast and go about getting it in the right way. How about that? So let's talk about rebuilding your warm list on Facebook. You know, whatever stage you're at with your online business, this podcast is not here on how to advise you on how you should approach your current warm market if you still have one on social media.
I want to share with you how to solve an even bigger problem for both new and veteran online networkers. That is keeping your warm market constant. Something that I've always done. Yes, you can grow and maintain a warm list on Facebook and social media. Social media is one of the best tools for keeping your warm market constant. The mistake people often make is that they view a warm list as something that ends.
OK, so they have a certain amount of people they know. And once they've spoken to them all, that's it. It ends. There is nobody else that they know. Furthermore, people believe that trying to replace their warm list is achieved by randomly adding people. to their friends list, click, click, click, click, click, add, add, add, add, add, which as you'll learn later on is not a good thing to do.
And while this book does cover how to market yourself so that you're able to attract new contacts and new leads, rebuilding your warm list is a much more active process which does require you to often make the first move. You can't just sit back and wait for people to fall in love with you. Rebuilding your warm list will require you to step outside your comfort zone.
I know this can be scary in today's modern society, and I'm aware of the ever-increasing social anxiety epidemic that seems to affect a lot of people when it comes to starting up a conversation. So I offer you the following advice. Use your social roots. The best way to think of your Facebook personal profile is as a central hub.
a kind of virtual shop where people both enter and exit. It's also a list building tool that allows you to get people who you meet offline in the real world and moving them online to your... brand or your online shop now I know we said we don't have a physical shop earlier on but this is something a little bit different then what we need to do is to filter them back offline in the form of new
business, clients or customers. This is a great way to build those warm market relationships you're looking for. I know for many people the thought of going out to meet new people is daunting. But imagine for one moment...
Facebook as a kind of car wash. You take people in the real world who you meet who are blind to you, your brand, your opportunity, your products, your services, whatever, and you take them through the car wash and they come out the other side of... new warm contact who has the potential to be new business or a new contact or simply a friend or a connector.
This is also a great way to expose people to your brand and business without having to awkwardly prospect them out and about. Or even worse, simply adding random people and then spamming them with links.
¶ Connecting Online and Offline Worlds
Too many people are sitting behind a screen trying to build a large war market list without even leaving the house. Some people, when that significant influence and success has been established, can get away to this to a degree. But you have to take time to converse with people in the real world, if it's safe and if it's appropriate.
Whether it's in a social or retail environment, you need to get good at taking the pressure off yourself to figure out how to approach the subject of your business, your brand or your opportunity, products or services. You simply need to concentrate on the person that you're speaking to. What are their desires? What are they interested in? I always take the time to find out what people do for a living.
If I already know what they do, because I'm in that situation, I'm always interested to know what people's plans are. What is their goal? Is there a plan for them to get to the top of their chosen job or profession, whatever they do?
Don't make it about you. When I meet people in the real world, I'm looking to see what their long-term goals are and after speaking with most people I soon realise that they either don't have a plan or long-term goals or they simply don't want to get to the top of their chosen career. You should always be respectful of people and what they do. Being genuinely interested in someone without motive is one of the greatest ways to build your warm list, make people feel safe and comfortable.
And once you've established a connection with someone, simply say, hey, look, I'd love to connect with you. I'd be interested in chatting with you. Would you kind of pop your name into Facebook? Simple. or word it however you like words to that effect hand them your phone as if it were your virtual business card and what you've done created the beginnings of a new warm market contact on Facebook brand new and not prejudging of you and this is worth more than 50 random friend ads
You've not tried to recruit them into your business or used any tasteless sales tactics. You've simply exposed them to your brand. once you've added a new person who you've met in the real world react to their profile picture drop them a like check out their Facebook brand drop them a nice message this is exactly what I do my job is to do nothing more than expose people to my online brand
and get inside their newsfeed. I want to become part of their echo chamber which we are going to get to in the next chapter. This approach means I can either indirectly market to them daily until such time passes that they reach out to me, but remember what you've learned about need earlier on, or... In due course, I will have the opportunity to directly message them as a warm market prospect. There is already a pre-existing real-world relationship where they know you. And, you know what?
They know me and I know them. I can also pick up on our previous conversation from when we previously met. This stage of the relationship is taking them from your online brand back offline into the real world where you can help free them from any kind of worry or concern they may have to get somebody offline means getting them onto the phone or a webinar or a zoom or
Just meeting up for a coffee and not simply restricting the relationship to a text or a group message or a Facebook message. You can build a monster pipeline and fresh warm list leads quickly and effectively without having to worry.
¶ Avoiding the 'Singing to the Choir' Trap
about awkwardly prospecting people in the real world as that's not always appropriate. But what about singing to the choir?
The number one mistake that I made early on in my Facebook career was having all the people I did business with as Facebook friends. Now don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean you can't be friends with your team, your organisation, your staff, people you... do business with but the idea of the Facebook friend has become so sacred as discussed earlier that worryingly it almost has the same if not more value than real-world friendships which is insane it's crazy
The idea of now removing or deleting somebody as a Facebook friend can be more impacting and devastating than you realize. Think about how you feel when you visit someone's profile. that you thought was a friend, only to realise that you're no longer connected, it can sting. Even if you're going to delete somebody, only to realise they beat you to it. Think about how that feels.
The number of messages I've had from people angry because I've removed them as my Facebook friend, you know, this can leave a huge emotional impact and really spoil somebody's day. It can be devastating for people, certainly. on the receiving end. However if we're in business, if you want to be in business you can't make everybody happy. If relationships on Facebook are no longer serving you, you cannot let the moral dilemma of staying connected with somebody beat you up.
Being closely connected as Facebook friends with your team members, existing customers and those people you do business with as much as we may love and cherish and respect them can sometimes be detrimental if you don't. manage it correctly nor can you stir social envy which we discussed earlier but also it's like singing to the choir or
preaching to the converted. People you're already doing business with are the ones seeing your stuff. We want to be looking for new, fresh connections. People we're not yet doing business with. As part of your social media project, your aim should be to focus your attention on those new people who could potentially be new business for you. Hence, your social roots. If your posting habits are designed to be attracting new customers, new team members, new business,
and your content is landing in the news feeds of those people you're already doing business with, it can often be counterintuitive. It can also be frustrating for those people you do business with, seeing you making those same business posts that attracted them towards you in the first place, you must pay attention to whose echo chamber you are playing to.
¶ Optimizing Friend vs. Follower Strategy
A noble and prudent strategy is to reserve Facebook friends for those people you meet and connect with. Encourage those people who you do business with to simply follow you. This is something you want to nip in the bud right now and put into practice. It's worth investing time in doing this, but you must manage how you see this and execute it. It's not always the size that counts. Facebook certainly doesn't usually like you having more than 2,300 friends.
The reason for this is that once you start going over this number, you start to build up a list of inactive friends or a higher percentage of friends who simply won't get to see your posts or that no longer engage with you.
So Facebook from this can only determine from this high percentage of your friends who are not interested in what you have to say What they will do is they will push your posts further down the newsfeed By limiting your friends to around 2,300 and focus on building huge followership over friendship, So it kind of does the job.
for you therefore focus on growing followers to encourage those people who reach out to you online to follow you and see you first This way you can build high visibility without sabotaging your engagement in the newsfeed. If you want to go one step further, you can reserve close friends for those people who you meet out and about in the real world and those people who you are genuinely developing close relationships with as I do as discussed previously.
with the social ruse. Does this not make more sense? particularly those of you who are building larger organizations in businesses such as network marketing and direct sales and home-based businesses. Try to avoid having all your team and colleagues as your Facebook friends and simply encourage them to follow you and see you first otherwise you are indeed simply singing to the choir but by now you already know this it may be worth
depending on the state of your friends list and posting habits restricting friend requests to just friends of friends as opposed to everybody this will reduce the amount of malicious fake or bogus profiles accidentally slipping through the net and affecting your reach.