Kiaranfinn Online: Can You Have Too Many Social Media Connections?

Why too many connections may be hurting your engagement

It would seem logical to assume that having a million twitter followers -5000 Facebook friends and untold numbers of connections on Linkedin etc would be more beneficial to your social and business voice than none. And you’d be right.

However the law of diminishing returns kicks in pretty quickly in the absence of engagement.

I find it curious to note that people with thousands of Facebook connections (hardly friends) can post numerous times and receive negligible ‘likes’ or comments – and yet those with just a few hundred have the opposite experience.

If you are connected via some tenuous common interest (you both like Lady Gaga for instance) then it’s probably not appropriate to post personal comments on their page BUT it is hugely engaging to “like” their comments

Trust me –it’s the law of reciprocity – if someone frequently ‘likes’ your posts – you’ll feel compelled to start reciprocating

This will lead to you checking out their ‘info” and before long adding the odd comment – and volla dialogue is initiated

This does not take long. 5 minutes per day can connect you to dozens of real people and as they say it’s a small world –once genuinely connected this can lead you into some fruitful experiences

If you are a centre of influence already then it’s a different ball game. Charlie Sheen doesn’t need to develop individual relationships with his Twitter followers – they are connected for their own voyeuristic reasons BUT more than likely 95% of your connections are tokenism at best and a puerile attempt to appear popular at worst –

It’s a simple philosophy but you become infinitely more interesting when you become genuinely interested!