I’ve been following your blog for some time, and like what you have to say.  You might want to know that I’ve just published a new article on ________.  If you find it interesting, I’d appreciate if you could mention it on your blog.

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Now, I really like helping out other people, so on occasion I’ve obliged.  But after having received dozens of nearly identical requests, I’ve stopped participating.  I feel a bit of a curmudgeon for doing that, but this is what’s been concerning me:

• Even though the sites have looked a bit legitimate, I have vague suspicions that there’s something underhanded going on.  Especially when there’s no contact details on the website and the description is something vague like “we provide resources for people who ….” – it sounds like maybe they’re just trying to build up their Google rankings with not much value for real people.
• One day, I received essentially identical requests from two different names for two different websites – at about 3am, my time.  This would indicate that there’s probably some Google ranking company pushing their services out in Asia someplace.  I don’t buy services from those kinds of companies, and I don’t want to contribute, even indirectly, to plugging their companies.
• I’ve never once received any kind of thank you for having done this, and I get no sense that the writer knows or cares anything about me as a person.

The first two are logical, the third is an emotional reaction.  But social interactions – people helping people in communities of shared interest – are built primarily on emotional attachments.

What do we learn from all this?  That your work in building networks, increasing your influence, and knowing the right people, is built on both emotional and logical connections.

Don’t downplay the emotional.

When you give freely to others, when you show gratitude, when you put yourself at service, you create emotional bonds that are incredibly resilient and memorable.

You can carry this into manipulation, of course.  In that e-mail above, the person said they appreciated my blog.  That felt great – it stroked my ego – the first couple of times, but I’ve discovered that it’s inauthentic.  What’s different from REAL appreciation is that this person said nothing specific, either about what I’d done or the value they received.

It’s easy to say “I appreciate what you do.”  It’s much harder, and has much more impact, to explain WHY.

The same goes for social media.  Most comments I see aren’t conversations, they’re just throwaways which are generated by people who have too much time and easy access to technology.  This is exactly how Twitter has gotten such a bad image to the non-Twitterverse.

In my case, I don’t spend much time on social media networks.  When I do, I’m looking for substantial conversations where people are helping each other.

Other than that, I’m looking to help people In Real Life.  For real.

If you are interested in individual career coaching, group coaching, or other resources which might help you with difficult choices, please contact Carl at carl@dierschow.com.

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© 2011 Possibilities Partnership LLC