but how do you pick your Friends on Facebook? Consider a major difference between Twitter and Facebook. On the former, your followers are unlimited, so within reason, you’re happy to have almost anyone follow you. Facebook limits you to 5,000 friends (although people can and do circumvent this with fan pages and multiple Facebook entries – I started a “fan page” for Dr. Dick, Inc. as soon as I started approaching 4,000 friends). In addition to that, Facebook has a lot more features than Twitter. You can have many different types of posts, and they can be longer. You can have more intimate friend relationships that dig deeper into your common interests. Using an analogy from my friend Jimmy Davis, Twitter is a “singles bar”, and Facebook is a social gathering in your home. You wouldn’t invite everybody from the bar into your home. The bottom line is, you want to be a bit more “picky” when choosing friends on Facebook.

Facebook allows you to request friendships of others, and it also allows others to request friendships from you. What criteria should you use to get maximum ROI (Return on Influence) with your Facebook account? When you are looking for friends, especially in the beginning, peruse the pages and groups. Do searches on “network marketing”, “online marketing”, etc. to find groups or people you might want to hook up with. Once you have a few friends, look at their friends to see if they know people you want to know. Before you do an actual friend request, go look at the person’s profile. Most people who are using Facebook for business purposes will have an “open” profile so you can see their statement of purpose, website, etc. If they show a website(s), click on it(them) and see what their blog or business site is about. Will you gain mutual benefit from befriending this person? Or do they seem to spend most of their time playing Mafia Wars and sending nonsensical “gifts” to other people? Decide upfront what your “friend” criteria are and stick to them. Don’t request friendship simply based on the number of mutual friends or how attractive the picture is. (Guess what? Many people don’t use their own picture anyway!) Check people out before you request a friendship.

What about friend requests you receive? I’m a lot pickier than I used to be. Start out being picky. As with requests you make, go check out their profile before you say yes. Here’s why I say “ignore” on many requests: 1) picture of a logo, a product, a dog, a child, or anything other than the face of the person making the request (there’s a reason they call it Facebook); 2) no website or a website that doesn’t work; 3) indications from the profile that this person spends Facebook time on the time-wasters mentioned above; or 4) no information displayed (might be a result of their privacy settings, but hey, I want to know something about them). For those who request friendships from me, I use one important criteria that is different from those I request myself: is this person accomplished and successful in whatever field they are in? I have befriended many realtors, authors, speakers, offline business owners, success coaches, artists, bodybuilders and fitness people, etc. – in addition to network and online marketers – because those are all my additional interests. I want friends who can advise me in those areas when I need such advice.

What about “unfriending”? Should you do it as you run out of friend space? Absolutely. Some people will prove themselves to be annoying by spamming your wall with all kinds of nonsense. Delete their posts and unfriend them. Others will never interact with you even to the point of ignoring personal messages asking a legitimate question. I ignore most “sales pitches” in messages, but I do respond to any real question someone asks. So should you.

No matter what you do, if you are aggressively trying to expand your influence on Facebook, you will approach and hit the magic limit of 5,000 friends. That’s why you need to set up a “fan” page as soon as 2,500 friends. Start building a following based on your business advice – adding value to others. Personally, I don’t think you should use the fan page to plug your opportunity. Use it to post information of value to all online or network marketers and to direct people to my blog. When you do that, the Law of Attraction draws people to YOU. They will want to know what you do then (as opposed to when they are first exposed to you or your page).

Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites. Use it wisely and well.

Dr. Dick

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