Renee Lemley

A comment I made during last week’s #SMchat was one of the most re-Tweeted and commented upon Tweets I’ve posted recently. My Tweet (on the left) was to point out that you can spend a lot of time on social media without seeing any benefits. Just like in real life, if you’re interacting with the wrong people, you won’t get much out of the conversation.

There’s an article in the Guardian that says Twitter is changing how we interact with the world. The way I see it, social media isn’t changing the way we interact with the world, it’s giving us a new way to network with people that we may not have had access to without Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/etc.

Heidi Cool, a #SMchat regular, wrote a post in September 2009 asking, “How are you interacting with your target audience?”, and although it’s important to interact with your target audience, it’s also important to connect with people who aren’t your target audience right now, because they could be in the future.

My friend Renee Lemley from Gray Matter Marketing came up with some great names for Twitter follow strategies like: THE UNEQUIVOCALLY UNRECIPROCATED FOLLOW STRATEGY and THE EVEN-STEVEN FOLLOW STRATEGY in her post, “Why, How and Who Do You Follow?” Which social media interaction strategy is right for you? Or do you use a different technique?

The main question in this week’s #SMchat conversation is: How do you know who to interact with on Social Media?

My short answer: Everyone!

Want to find out the longer version? (We’re limited to 140 characters because it’s a Twitter chat, but I can guarantee there will be more than 9 characters of conversation going on!) Join us on Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 1PM ET on the hashtag #SMchat for answers to the question above and these questions as well:

Julian Loren wants to know, How do you gracefully disengage when needed? Hopefully, Sherry Lowry will join us to expand on her suggestion to “build in graceful exits to agreements.”

Jeunesse Yvonne wants to know if it’s appropriate to follow your boss/manager. A Mashable survey says it’s wrong to friend your boss on Facebook in their article, “Facebook Friends With Your Boss? Right or Wrong?” I’m not sure that I agree with that, but let’s hear what you have to say!

Jeunesse Yvonne also asks should you interact with people you’d like to be employed by? I think DJ Waldow would emphatically say that’s a good idea…emphatically mainly because DJ’s enthusiastic about everything, but also because social media helped him get his job at Blue Sky Factory!

Got questions on who to interact with on social media? Even better, bring an opinion or some real-life examples of your own to our Twitter chat on Wednesday, 9/8/10 at 1P ET – we look forward to chatting with you there! Can’t make it, or have a burning question that you don’t want to forget? Leave a comment below and I’ll make sure we discuss it during the chat. I’ll also post a link to the transcript for your review.