3. Learn and Practice the Art of Following Up
“It’s one of those things that you learn from experience, although recently a friend (and new influential contact) Steve Amoia drove this point home when we were talking about building a network of contacts in the footballing world.The basic idea is this: every time you ask your network (or a contact) for their help, follow up by thanking them for their input, giving them as much credit as possible and by reciprocating the favor when asked for. If you want to by cynical about it, then consider that people don’t mind helping as long as they see a benefit in it – whether it’s the other person stoking their ego or a reciprocation of that favor or even a monetary benefit.” —-Ahmed Bilal November 28, 2007
http://performancing.com/networking/3-ways-immediately-improve-your-networking-skills
Very little has been happening in this particular weblog since I started blogging again. The loss of interest in blogging that seems to bother a lot of bloggers after 3 to 5 months didn’t last long here and now everything seems just fine. But I did have another idea for using it in a constructive manner.
In the past few weeks I have been trying to get a handle on SU. So much has been written about it and that’s part of the problem. Everyone is writing about it as a way to increase traffic to your blog. But then you go to SU and you find out that a lot of folks there have no interest in that at all. They just want to find the greatest photos and most interesting articles and put them up on their SU page. And really they have a point. That’s what SU is all about.
So why all the articles about increasing traffic? Because there is another group that wants to also increase traffic to their blog or blogs. So you have these two basic ideas and folks tend to go towards one or the other. Some are in the middle. Maybe it depends on how much they want a particular post to be seen. And then they drift towards the other base of operations and spend much time thinking about aesthetics and long lists of useful gizmos.
I pretty much know where I am all of the time and I wrote a post about it that was reviewed by a bunch of stumblers and seen by many as well. Here it is.
http://davidnotes.com/2007/11/16/stumbleupon-manifesto/
The interesting thing to me is that I have talked to a lot of my SU circle of friends about these things and I still don’t really know whether they want to go one way or the other. Maybe some of them are just drift depending on the circumstances. That’s fine. But it would be nice to know since I don’t want to ask anyone to review something if they aren’t ready to do it.
There are really three groups as far as I can see. There are the committed SU regulars who want to build something beautiful and don’t want to start trading stumbles or do anything else that might conflict with their ideas about stumbling. They are in charge of SU and more power to them. Then there are the drifters who go back and forth as I have described. And then there are those who read the articles about building stumbling traffic with some enthusiasm and are ready to commit to pushing up stumblers who are ready to push them up. These are the stumblers that I need to know. Because I will know that I’m not bothering them if I ask them to look at something. And I know that they won’t drift off one day and come around the next with a request. And this does happen.
I’m still looking for beautiful photos and interesting lists. But I have time to also remember folks who I can count on for help. All of this is fun and a part of blogging as far as I can see. But the fun part requires that I don’t ruffle anyone’s feathers. I try very hard not to do that in life and and online as well.
One other thing that needs clarification. When I need a review it is for something that I have created on my blog. Right now there is a wonderful photo of an owl catching a fish on my SU page and you can see every feather and drop of water. I only wish I could take a photo like that. But I’m not asking for reviews of it. It has plenty of reviews and reviewing it does not mean anything to me. Reviewing it and then asking for a review is similar to drifting back and forth. And if that’s what anyone wants to do that’s great! It’s all great! But having that photo on your SU site does not qualify for getting a review of something you wrote on your blog in exchange. You see? It’s not really fair, is it?
The other issue that comes up is that people are busy. Some are a lot busier than I am because I am retired. And I understand that very much. I can remember what it was like to raise children, work and do lots of other things at the same time. So once someone decides they are in the group of stumblers who are committed to pushing up others there may still be the issue of time. And I need to know about that too. Because it is difficult to tell the difference between someone who is busy and someone who is a drifter. You see? They look an awful lot alike sometimes. But there really isn’t a problem. Once you tell me what you are I can just send you a message and hope you have time to read it before next month!
And that last point suggests something else. I really enjoy getting to know people! If you have an interesting thought or story I wouldn’t mind at all hearing about it. If you have time to post a couple of sentences here about what you did over the weekend I would be thrilled. This SU thing is about building blogs in my book. But SU and Blogs are about discovering people and building relationships. I don’t have any ads anywhere on my four blogs. It’s just fun to try and create something and have friends out there who are doing the same thing. It’s great! That’s why I blog.
And in order to find more folks I need to build traffic. You see the reasoning here? Having an SU page that is full of exquisite stuff that somebody else did just doesn’t quite do it for me. I’m sure it does for some people and they get to know a lot of people that way. But I am trying to create something myself that a lot of folks will want to see. And that goal is still a long way down the road.
When I look at other blogs I zero in on someone who is trying to create something as well. And maybe they are at the beginning of that effort. But I want to help them to grow. If I can somehow get SU to help them do it then I will. And we will grow in our creative efforts together.
So that’s it for now. Let me know if you feel you are in the last of the three categories regarding stumbling and we can go from there. Just a short comment here will do it. Everybody else has my admiration and best wishes. Hopefully you will still want to message back and forth. And I won’t bother you with stumbling requests.
I know that most readers don’t like to comment but here’s the thing. If I don’t hear that you want to participate I am going to assume you don’t want to participate. And that’s fine. I will stop bugging you and go somewhere else for stumbling! So be sure and let me know if you DO want to commit to this. And if you change your mind in whichever direction just leave a note here! Thanks for taking the time to read this and happy stumbling in whatever form it takes!
