The Surface Factor, or Why Social Media Fudged

ROTW Contributor: Angela Durden

Networking events! (Gotta go meet and greet. Collect those business cards for follow up.)

Networking! Networking! (Follow-up emails sent.)

Networking? (Emails ignored?)

Phone calls made. (Hello-o-o-o-o? Anybody there? Yoohoo?)

There was a time when I could go to business events and tradeshows where leads were prequalified, then make follow-up phone calls to set real appointments that would be kept. Those days are over.

More people than ever work from home offices. Folks don’t want business appointments to show up at their houses. I don’t blame them. I don’t want to know all that personal stuff about you, either; things like whether or not you cut your grass, is the house paint peeling, do you throw your underwear around the living room, and whether or not your teenager is a warlock. Ewwww.

Privacy and coffee-shop meetings are good.

But then this thing happened called Social Media. It promised you could connect with more people, faster, and in a more meaningful fashion than ever before. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Linkedin as the business media that quickly devolved into Facebook-type status updates, all promised ways to stay in touch.

It hasn’t worked. I know less about more people than ever before. So, I decided to do an experiment. I began with Linkedin. Yes, I would go through all my connections on Linkedin, send messages to those that looked like we had something in common (say, in a group, in the metro Atlanta area), and invite them to have coffee and a chat so we could get to know more about the other, and either do business together or funnel business to each other.

While I am not that awesome at math problems, I can confidently state that of the carefully crafted and personal messages I sent out, less than 10% responded. Of those that responded, I was able to have two phone conversations and one face to face. Many of those that responded thanked me for reaching out, but they were busy, busy, busy, busy, and check back later. One told me he only meets with people when a big deal is on the table. I replied that was awesome, except how can I make a deal with someone I don’t even know what it is he does specifically?

So, I gave a close read to the descriptions of what these people are or do. Entrepreneur is a favorite one, but what does that really mean? What. Do. Entrepreneurs. Do? Obviously they don’t know or they would answer with something like “Hey, I’ve started a software company.” You know, like I’ve done.

So, I’ve dubbed the current business networking environment The Surface Factor. It’s where you can go out and people are very happy to see you at events — it’s not like they hate your guts or anything, and they want to get their picture with you and they make sure you know all about the next event and everybody is smiling and shaking hands and hugging and the excitement is palpable and everybody is saying to everybody else “let’s get together, give me a call”, but like the old Harry Chapin song says, it will never be arranged.

Taxi (partial lyrics from Google Play)

There was not much more for us to talk about

Whatever we had once was gone

So I turned my cab into the driveway

Past the gates and the fine trimmed lawns

And she said, “We must get together”

But I knew it’d never be arranged

Then she handed me twenty dollars for a two-fifty fare

She said, “Harry, keep the change”

Well another man might have been angry

And another man might have been hurt

But another man never would have let her go

I stashed the bill in my shirt.