I joined the group yesterday..and suddenly I have more ‘friends’ by far with friend requests dropping into my inbox like confetti.

Then I learned that if I added lots of friends I too could ‘score’ up in the group to a place of ‘influence’.

So all those lovely people were only ‘friending’ me to gain influence. Hmmm. I mean, I understand that all groups are also places where members are after some form of advantage but it does seem to me that there are two forms of advanatge-seeking ina  group.1. I join a FB group to gain advantage in FB. and..2. I join the group to gain advantage in the group, not FB.

I pulled up my list of group members and began clicking them to add as ‘friends’ Hey, I too can have leverage and influence over people in the group! Then I stopped. What the hell are you doing? What has this got to do with your reason for being here? 

Seems to me there are SO many ways to divert ourselves from our purpose. I am on FB to advance my business. So my purpose is still to advance my business. Then I join a group to advance my knowledge of FB to advance my business. But seems to me that the farther I extend from my original purpose the less effect I can have one my primary purpose. Comments?

Thanks Michael,I didn’t ask for that… the thing is, we are all a form hackers s’il vous plait. We all seek to advantage ourselves over the dominant paradigm, and system exploiters are but one more manifestation of the same. Specialisation in all its forms could be seen as a mild ‘hack’ where we assemble facts in specific order to achieve a specific result on any new customer… And all the net is about is specialisation. Niche, something different.

So yes, I understand that you need to trim your sails in these early stages. I well remember a comments page I added to my website years ago. It was blitzed by a competitor and so a good idea had to be removed. 

I guess that’s what is so extraordinary about the net. We think we’ve got it sorted and kazammm! another tech/social/software breakthrough treads all over our lovely blueprints.

Yes, I am now an adventurer And I love the friends I have made so far, the people are different here and willing to help out in any way they can.

I also appreciate your imput @ianhamilton. There will always be those who have no intention of helping anyone or really being their “friend” unless it benefits them, it’s unfortunate, but true.  I think those individuals will eventually “weed out” because a friendship is a two-way street, whether in person or on-line.

Thank you! @mike-stelzner, I joined the club 3 days ago, and you don’t know how grateful I am to you.  Being a part of SME club has brought me out of my shyness and I am enjoying communicating with my new friends.  I don’t really get this with FB but hopefully that will change once I learn a thing or two!

My husband and I are very new in social media  and really needed help to get our business off the ground and to the next level.  We both changed careers of 23 years, moved to another state, and decided to do what we love and make a living at it… but it’s a whole new ball game, and I must change my mindset now and learn the whole on-line social media scene. 

Since joining, I have met some really nice “friends” here, including you @donpurdum who have been so gracious and patient to help me understand all of this social media language.  It’s an exciting adventure and know that we will all succeed together, helping one another.   

Evanthia

Great points @ianhamilton – there will always be “gamers” out there but I do believe the cream rises to the top and the true contributors will always get more value.  Luckily we are addressing it!  

This whole subject hits at those “like ladders” content and search results have more value when organic as opposed to “like ladders” and keyword farming (back when people used to put paragraphs of keywords for web bots to devour).

Go ORGANIC!!

I haven’t asked for one friend yet because I have been so busy following the Facebook club threads.  This is a fantastic site.  I have already visited a few sites of members  that have given me great information.  I felt comfortable enough to share and have not seen any ego  or aggravation between people like I have seen in Linked in groups.  Everyone seems to be looking for help or giving great information.  I just want to help my clients by learning as much as I can without worrying about who is concerned about their own self-interest.  I think it is easier to connect in the clubs than the friend thing.