I am getting all the invitations on Facebook to become a fan of different web sites. OK, I admit I have some friends of Facebook I don’t really know. Hey, it’s a grand mixer dance and I certainly would like to know a little better each of my Facebook or Twitter friends and followers. Sending me invitations to become a fan of this or that page is not a way to become friendlier or to get any attention to the web sites. The only way is to get to know the other person and she/he will become your fan without an invitation. Sending fan invitations to the entire list is not a proper method of winning friends or influencing people. Look up Fanaticism, it s an emotion. I know there is a cultural devaluation of terms like love, hate, etc., but can someone get emotional about a digital invite?
In fact I know this from running blogs for many years. People who will comment and read your blog regularly are the same people you have a human connection with. Words are cheap, human connections are precious. For a person to become a fan of anything she/he must become emotionally involved with you as a human being. Frankly that’s why people like to follow celebrities so much. The obvious marketing Holy Grail is that a celebrity is a brand with whom we have an emotional bond. It might be that we vicariously lived the life of an actor in a movie; it might be that we had an intense experience imagining shooting that last second three pointer at the end of a game seven, whatever. But we feel like we know this person on a visceral, meaningful, human level.
So people will read, watch or become a fan of your work if they are interested in you as a human being, what you actually say comes at a distant second. First I created a myth and then I created an art.
Further Reading:
The Reasons I am Hanging Up on Twitter and Facebook
How Facebook [and Twitter] Jumped the Shark
Outsmarting the Facebook Lobster Trap
