Friends of Dave #160: Love Connection
There's a difference between being 'connected to' and 'connected with' someone.
As many of you know, I have a love/hate relationship with social media. One weird thing we all tend to do in order to measure someone's authority on a particular platform is check how many followers or connections they have. The general notion is that the larger the number, the more reach and influence the person must have.
This came up in a discussion with my 16 year old son early in the week. He is in a rock band with some friends and has been trying to increase their followers on the band Instagram account.
While they've been doing more gigs and posting a lot of great content lately, he is frustrated that the follower count remains relatively small, particularly as it compares to other local bands. In his mind, there is a direct correlation between follower count and band quality. Thus, to him this means his band must not be as good as the other bands.
I could see he was discouraged. I asked him how he felt things were when he played. Did he enjoy playing in the band with his band mates? Was he having fun? Did he feel like the audience at his gigs was having fun? Was he satisfied with the turn out and the responses he was getting both in person from the audience and on social media from the followers they have? To each of those questions he said 'yes'.
My response: so what's the problem?
We often get so hung up on being connected to a large number of people that we forget about what is really important -- being connected WITH them. There is a big difference.
It requires relatively little effort or commitment to become connected to people, especially in this day and age. Literally, a push of a button is all it takes. Without thinking you could probably add at least 10-20 connections to your LinkedIn network a week.
But to connect with people means you are more than just a number in a follower count. It takes effort. It means you make time for them. You to speak to them, listen to them, will be vulnerable to them and show your true self to them. You share a much stronger bond when you connect with people.
So I then asked my son: if your band were to magically get 2000 followers on Instagram, how many of them would you expect to realistically show up for a gig to listen to you play? He said he'd be ecstatic if it was 50. FYI that would be only 2.5% of them.
I then asked him what if you only had 100 followers and the same 50 showed up? That's 50% -- which would mean that half of the people that follow your band like you so much that they will go out of their way to hear you play. Same number of people in the audience, but better hit rate. That would be pretty amazing.
The other thing about making connections with people, I pointed out to him, is that it can have a compounding effect. If each of those people feel connected to your band so much that they bring someone to a gig, soon you'll have 100 people in your audience, and they'll tell some friends....and so on...and so on...and so on.... (that last part, not surprisingly, was lost on him).
The lesson: worry less about connecting to a large number of people. Focus more on sharing quality connections with as many people as you can. That may take a lot more effort because you have to put yourself out there, but in the end it is worth it.
Now think about your own personal and professional networks (even your clients) -- how many people are you connected to vs. connected with? If you want to get more value from these connections, make 2020 the year you connect AND engage with more of them.
Good articles below, Friends. Stay warm, check them out, and have a great (and for some of you, long) weekend everyone!
XOXO
Dave
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