Building Relationships Takes Effort.

So I met Dave Evans on Twitter. Dave just taught me a TON of stuff…. He used his entire 140 character allotment, but that’s ok. I like a guy that’s precise, but pushes things to the limit.

What could I possibly learn from Dave in one twitter post? (OK remember I am new) I have an analytical mind. I evaluate and process EVERYTHING. Nothing is just a straight forward communication with me. (oh yeah this was about Dave wasn’t it? Did I mention I’m as narcissistic as the next person?)

Well that brings me to the first thing I learned form Dave. I sent a little note out to a few ’strangers’ who are ‘following me’ on twitter, asking for their opinion on my blog post Anti-social Media. Dave didn’t just reply to me (on Twitter of course). He asked me if he could quote me. **I swoon**

Lesson #1: Make Me Feel Important

So Dave has written a whole entire book on social media entitled "Social Media Marketing An Hour A Day" and I’ve been on twitter for a day, and YET, Dave found something interesting about something I wrote and asked if he could share that something with other important people that he knows.

Lesson #2: This Thing Takes a Little Effort

Dave had to go out of his way to visit my blog, read the post in question, find something of interest, go back to Twitter (or his desktop app) and flick me off a tweet in reply. OK so he’s not going to burn off breakfast with it, but it’s effort just the same. Dave doesn’t just expect me to worship his guru-ness.

Lesson #3: I Love You

If you do something nice for someone, like actually take a little time, put in a little effort, and make them feel special in some way, they will want to do something nice for you, like bake a pie, or wash your windows, or devote an entire blog post to your unselfish act of kindness.

I came to the conclusion a long time ago that we are all attention starved. Today’s technology has made that situation SO MUCH worse. No kidding… where are the people who used to buy me a drink, and laugh at my jokes? They’re all on Twitter or Facebook, where they can have throngs (oops almost left out the "r") of adoring fans instead of one blonde groupie.

So here we are, back to talking about ME again. (It was never REALLY about Dave) The world is full of me’s… if you can’t pop over for coffee, then at the very least, please take the time to make me feel important. I have friends too and if I love you, so will they.

QUESTION: How has someone helped to make you feel important? How did you feel? Do you still ‘follow’ that person?