Can you be too thankful?

Picture credit: Wikimedia Commons

Like everyone, I was always taught to remember my p’s and q’s as a child and I when I started out using social media, I decided to make it part of my strategy to thank people for supporting me. So, where am going with this post you ask?! Well the other day I saw a conversation over on Facebook about people ‘over’ thanking and it losing its meaning, so it got me thinking can you ever be TOO thankful?

The main point of the conversation was that some people didn’t want to be thanked for re-tweeting /re-posting/sharing content as that was just what it was there for. Now, I can kind of take that on board; we’ve all seen those epic tweets that start as one person thanking someone and then it becomes war and peace ‘thank you, no thank you, no no thank you’ and it goes on, but at the end of the day is that such a bad thing? It is social media after all!

I’m a big fan of thanking people and very often do my shout out for my re-tweet superstars! I think not only is it a nice thing to do for the people that think my content is interesting enough to share with their followers, but it’s also a great way for people to find other supportive people to follow. 

So, for me the answer will always be no, you can’t ever be too thankful; I really do appreciate the amazing support I have encountered and continue to encounter on a daily basis! Without that support my business wouldn’t be growing and I wouldn’t be continuing to connect with so many incredible people and businesses.

So thank you for taking the time to read this – I hope you’re having a great day! :)

Social Media – a marathon not a sprint!

I love social media, that’s no secret but I really do believe in the ‘social’ aspect of it so I’m always amazed when people feel the need to buy ‘fans’!

I see it so much across Facebook and Twitter where you connect with someone just starting out and the next time you look, their numbers have grown dramatically, almost overnight!

Now of course growing your network is the name of the game, but it’s still networking just as would you in ‘real life’! You wouldn’t pay people to attend your network meeting so why buy ‘fans’ that will never interact with you or never pass on your ‘business card’ (via a share or a re-tweet)?

When I started using Twitter nearly 2 years ago, my goal wasn’t to reach x amount of followers but to interact and connect with as many people as possible and by taking the ‘marathon’ approach I’m now very close to 5K with 95% of my work coming from it! Plus the other important thing is that a high percentage of those people that I’ve connected with are using Twitter for exactly the same reason I am.

I think everyone can relate to that feeling when you first start out and you don’t know what to say or just the enormity of it all, but buying ‘fans’ really isn’t the answer! If you invest the time at the beginning setting the style of your accounts the rest will easily follow.

So if you want to make social media work for your business, grab your running shoes and don’t miss out on the amazing opportunities out there – just be prepared to go the distance there’s no quick fix and don’t get tempted to sprint ;) 

(Picture from http://bit.ly/X8UcVJ)