Why do I love accruing connections and followers? It’s not what you may think

“But do you actually know all those people”, a friend asked me as we were discussing our differing approaches to how we use LinkedIn.

She’d read my recent blog all about how I treated LinkedIn as a journal and was grilling me about it — I’ve previously explained in detail my evolving approach to using LinkedIn.

“If it’s a journal, why would you be willing to let others read it and, why do you care how many people read it”?—?she was commenting on the number of followers I had.

I know it doesn’t necessarily make sense but for me it’s an honour to share my journey with others [particularly having set up a business during Covid , a time that was incredibly tough and lonely ] and I love connecting/reconnecting with everyone that has been a part of that journey.

Every former client, every workshop attendee, every former classmate, every one I’ve had the pleasure of working with; they are all part of the journey.

In many ways, I wouldn’t be the person I am nor had all the experiences I’d had [good and bad] without each and everyone of them — for me, a great analogy is that I see them as all the people that have starred in the movie of my life [hence the photo above].

I’m fairly certain in the future, AI will be able to keep a track of literally everyone you’ve ever interacted with [from your long-term partner to the super-friendly waiter you met briefly on a holiday 12 years ago]. In the interim, for me, that’s a secondary purpose of social media; you can stay connected with so many more of them.

In an ideal world, I’d love to track down absolutely everyone that I have interacted with from my life and it pains me that certain people in particular [I’m thinking a few former friends, amazing work colleagues and exes ] have slipped away.

In the meantime, I’m just over the moon staying connected with so many and just as over the moon [maybe even over the sun] that so many of them follow the journey.

The connections can also come in handy when the shit hits the fan as a small business , although some people do have a habit of ignoring you .

The downsides of being a connection-lover

Ever since I started my own business, I have definitely seen the number of connections and followers going up as I go about doing all the things a small business owner must do.

As such, I just recently passed through the 16000 follower milestone on LinkedIn .

It was great, it was terrible, it was meaningless.

Great: how flattering that 16000 people want to follow my journey

Terrible: for every 5 new followers, I lose one old follower. It may be that they are tired of seeing my face every day or something has changed; despite whatever the valid reasons, just like losing business , it still hurts a little bit when I discover that someone I thought was close has stopped following or has disconnected??

Meaningless: Ultimately number of followers doesn’t mean anything; it doesn’t make you a better person, it doesn’t change your actual number of friends. At the end of the day it’s as arbitrary as the New LinkedIn Top Voices awards .

What does the future hold?

Because of my approach to life, I can imagine my connections continuing to increase as I continue to build my business.

This will be great but at the heart of it each of those connections is a person and, because I lead with EQ , that means every connection gets:

• A personalised voice note welcoming them when we connect [some also get this on their birthday if they are a Facebook or good friend]
• A coffee (virtual or in person ) to catch up each year
• An annual email sharing my latest news
• A plethora of engagement in their journeys and lots of questions along the way
• A shoulder-to-cry-on/someone-to-bounce-ideas off anytime they need one

Hopefully they enjoy this approach; people tell me they do!

I am fully aware that I won’t be able to keep up this level of personalisation as I get even more time-poor so, just like before, I may have to evolve my approach at some point .

In the meantime however I will keep sharing, keep connecting, keep going for catch ups.

I wouldn’t have it any other way; this approach has brought me new friends, reacquainted me with old friends, found me collaborators, delivered employees, generated new clients and so many more opportunities .

In fact, only today I went for lunch with a former university friend that I hadn’t seen in over 10 years all thanks to this approach ??.

And that’s why I value connections so much.

It really doesn’t matter if you have 10 connections or a million; it’s the person you are that counts.

My opinion is simple: Let’s all celebrate our connections and followers as best we can and good stuff will flow??

Faris ??

Faris is the CEO and Founder of Shiageto Consulting , an innovative consultancy that helps firms and individuals sharpen their effectiveness. Connect with him here

Success = IQ x EQ x FQ

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