I get tons of “add me” requests from people on various social media platforms on a daily basis. I tend to ignore 99% of them. Why? Here’s why: imagine entering a social event and walking up to the first random person you see and asking for their number. Sounds idiotic, right? You know nothing about this person and yet instead of introducing yourself and getting to actually know this person you just asked for their number. In your feeble mind that’s “networking” because that’s how you do it online; send a bunch of random “add me” requests and disguise it as “networking”. How idiotic!
Anytime I question one of these “networkers” who send me these appalling random requests they either get aggressive or defensive. Yeah! That’s just the kind of person I want to “network” with. Some get very pissed off when I ask what was the point in sending the random request: HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY RANDOM ADD ME REQUEST!!!!???? Others tell elaborate lies like; their computers did it while they stepped away.
Coming across a person’s profile with over 2,000 friends/whatever doesn’t say great networker to me: instead, it says great collector. Most likely that person actually knows and speaks to 5-10 people from that collector’s list he/she so proudly has on display. I have this theory that people who collect friends usually have very low self-esteem or suffer from other insecurities. To those individuals; collecting “friends” doesn’t help, you should seek professional counsel immediately.
Anyway, to all of you who are addicted to clicking that add me button you should think about the social event analogy above and then go outside and get some fresh air. Networking is so much more than just sending idiotic random add me requests with the hope of constantly increasing your “friend” count.