Courtship on Facebook and Twitter

Once upon a time, in a virtual land just a click away, there lived a man named Sam. Sam wanted to find a wife.

He’d heard all about this thing called social media. He thought it might be a good way to meet a woman to marry.

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A faceoff on Facebook
So Sam set up a profile on Facebook. He started adding friends – people from his childhood, college classmates and former co-workers.

One day, as Sam was checking his friends’ updates, his eyes noticed a beautiful woman named Sally. Facebook said she was “someone he may know”. He didn’t know her, but he did notice that they had a number of mutual friends.

So Sam asked her to be his friend. To his delight, Sally accepted!

The next day, Sally noticed that Sam was now “in a relationship”.  To her surprise, he said he was in a relationship with her!

She immediately removed him as a friend. Sam was so disappointed. He had high hopes for Sally.

Getting the message on Twitter
He decided this Facebook thing wasn’t working out so well for him. Then he got a great idea – he should try Twitter. So he set up an account and started following people.

One day, as Sam was looking at his tweeple’s tweets, he saw one of them had retweeted Sue. He liked the comment Sue had made. So he clicked on the link to her profile.

Sue was even more beautiful than Sally. Sam followed her. And Sue followed back!

Sam immediately direct messaged her. He said that he could tell from her profile that they were perfect for each other. So he asked her to marry him.

Sue blocked Sam. Poor Sam – he didn’t know what to do. He was getting increasingly desperate.

Automatically asking
Then he read about a service that automatically messaged people after they followed him. This was the answer! It’s a numbers game, he reasoned.

He would propose to everyone who followed him on Twitter. Surely one of them would accept his offer!

The day after he signed up for the service, he checked his Inbox in Twitter. One gentleman had replied that he would be happy to accept Sam’s offer. The thing is Sam doesn’t swing that way.

A woman had also responded. She would be happy to accept his offer. The only problem, she said, was that they would need to get married today. If they didn’t, she was going to be forced to leave the country.

Going coach
Sam was beside himself. He didn’t know what to do. Then he ran into a relationship coach.

Sam told the coach what had happened. The coach told Sam he was approaching it all wrong. He needed to be patient.

He needed to focus on the relationship, not the result.

From follow to fairy tale
Sam took the coach’s advice. He kept adding followers. He got to know many of them personally. 

One day, Sam followed Samantha and she followed back. It turned out she lived in his town.

They met, in person, for the first time at a tweet-up. Then the two of them met for coffee. The next week they went to dinner together.

They enjoyed each other’s company. They really clicked. Over time, their relationship blossomed.

Sam and Samantha got married, had two kids – a boy and a girl – and bought the house with the white picket fence. Oh, and they lived happily ever after.

How to start a relationship

Every relationship – personal and business – starts with a simple contact. Don’t pitch them immediately. Give it some time. Over time, you may connect and a courtship ensues. It’s just as true in the world of social networking as it is in real life.

If you want to use social media to build your business, don’t propose marriage before you ask for the first date.

When you do ask for that first date, make sure you know enough about the other person to know what they want to do.

Watch their updates for a while. See what they’re talking about. Check out their web site. Have some conversations that aren’t about your business. Discover a problem they’re trying to solve. Then talk about how you may be able to help them.

In other words, build relationships and you’ll grow your business and live happily ever after. Sounds like BIGG success!   

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file | podcast:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/biggsuccess/00612-072810.mp3

(Image in today's post by scottsnyde)