by Leesa Barnes
Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn. These are just 3 of the many social networking tools available online. They are great for finding new prospects, making new friends and connecting with colleagues.
Podcasters use social networking websites to build traffic and grow their audience. It’s an easy way to share your audio or video content to attract attention and gain new fans.
Despite this, many have forgotten their networking manners. They are pushy and greedy. This type of behaviour is enough to make you hit the ignore button.
Want to make enemies? Here are 5 ways you can lose friends online, and how to make sure it never happens to you.
1. Hard sell during the introduction. Along with saying "Hi, we have some mutual friends, so let’s connect," you include the URLs to your blog, website and everything else you’ve created online. Whether it’s asking for donations to your favorite cause or asking for a visit to your blog, you go in for the hard sell on the first hello.
What should you do instead? Become a friend, then offer a quick tip. I recently became friends with a man, a health buff, who reminded me to stand up and stretch every few minutes if I work at my desk all day. He was being helpful and I appreciated this.
Final advice? If you want to lose friends, do the hard sell. If you want to make friends, be helpful.
2. Bombard your friends with notes and emails with your offer. Whether it’s a teleclass, a workshop or a new book, tell all those in your friends’ list about your product. As many times as you can.
What should you do instead? Create a video offering a quick tip and ask for feedback. My friend, Nancy Mar recently did this. In just a few hours, she got 18 replies from friends providing feedback on her video tip.
Final advice? If you want to lose friends, be egotistical. If you want to make friends, be humble.
3. Send the same message one by one to all your friends. I’ve seen a few people send the same message over and over to different people. How do I know they’re doing this? When you login to Facebook, the front page contains the activities of your friends. Often, I see someone posting the same message to different people’s profile. The only thing the offender changes is the individual’s first name.
What should you do instead? Visit your friend’s profile page and find out if you share any hobbies. If so, share your thoughts on that hobby with your friend. If the person is celebrating a birthday, send a birthday greeting. Anything to make the note much more personal.
Final advice? If you want to lose friends, sp@m people. If you want to make friends, personalize your message.
4. Requesting friendship from everyone, including your contact’s 13 year old son. Some join Facebook and MySpace to be friends with as many people as they can. Their goal? To do #2 and #3 above. They are so focused on numbers, they neglect to check if they’re requesting friendship from teenagers.
What should you do instead? Read people’s profiles, study who they are, then request friendship. This will help you avoid the embarrassment of being called pedophile.
Final advice? If you want to lose friends, focus on quantity. If you want to make friends, focus on quality.
If you focus on being helpful and on developing a few key relationships, people will be so interested in you that curiosity alone will send them to your website, blog or podcast. Practice these 4 tips and watch your business grow as people start to trust and like you.
Award-winning blogger and podcasting expert, Leesa Barnes, teaches insider tips on how to boost your sales and make a six-figure income using a podcast. Visit http://www.leesabarnes.com and sign up to receive 2 FREE chapters from her book, Podcasting for Profit.
Join me tomorrow, July 25th, in 
