The ‘add friend’ button is so easy to push isn’t it?

If you see someone who has over 200+ mutual friends and they are in the same industry or they have the same interests, pressing the Add Friend button is almost second nature.

However, adding a friend is so 2000 and late…especially when it comes to developing business relationships. Why do I say this? Well, first of all, Facebook friend real estate is scarce. While 5000 friends seems like a lot if you keep pressing that Add button for every friend request, you can get to your 5000 limit pretty quickly.  Therefore, if you constantly accept friend requests from people who you don’t truly know, you are wasting actual space for future people who you actually do have a connection with.  People are not so quick to hit the confirm button on all friend requests these days, so we need to re-strategize.

Facebook friending is like a double edge sword – because you want to friend a person to connect with and perhaps do business with, but Facebook doesn’t make it easy for you to stand out and say “pick me pick me and confirm my friend request even though I am a complete stranger”, so to speak. Facebook makes it tough, but there are things that we can do to differentiate ourselves and stand out from the crowd.

5 Ways To Differentiate Yourself To Get On The Friend List

1) The New Kind of Friend Request – I respect the people who are using this new friend request strategy and I really like it for a couple of reasons.

The strategy is messaging the person who you want to become friends with and telling them something interesting (maybe it’s something you have in common, whatever) and then ask the person to friend you. This puts the ball in their court and if the request is accepted, then you already have somewhat of a relationship going….and that’s a good thing. The folks who have used this strategy on me, when I see them in my newsfeed, I actually know who they are and that’s a lot different than a friend request from a stranger!

If the person doesn’t answer your message, you could try again if you want to, and then after the second time if they don’t respond, just move on.

Tip – DON’T make the message too long!! It doesn’t have to be very short, just don’t make it paragraphs – especially if the person might be reading it on their phone – the long message may look like a novella!

Remember when Facebook had that functionality when you can actually message someone at the same time you friended them? Wonder why they did away with that because it was a great feature. Since we don’t have that feature anymore, we kind of have to work around it. Here’s a strategy, that I’ve seen work much better than just attempting to friend a stranger.

2) Download New Facebook Messenger App – You will get instant notification on your phone when someone corresponds with you. This actually means that you will intend to answer and talk to someone when they do respond. If you do not wish to respond back, then the app is probably not right for you.

There is a bit of controversy revolved around the Facebook Messenger App.  But you may want to still use it especially after you see these 2 features the messenger has to offer….

3) Video Messaging (with Facebook Messenger App) – The new Facebook Messenger App has a video feature, where instead of writing, you guessed it, you can do a video for the person. Use this where you think appropriate. It might not appropriate to use all the time. For instance, if you are not the best on camera or you are nervous, doing a video as a first impression might not be the best step. Also, sending a video to a very busy person might result in your video not being watched or not being watched all the way. So use with caution…

4) Audio Messaging (with Facebook Messenger App) – An audio message is another format you can do your message in. If you are comfortable talking on the phone, then doing an audio message might be a good thing for you to try out.

5) Use Other Social Media Networks – Look, Facebook is not the only social network on the planet that people use. If there is another form of media that might be more conducive to introductions, then you can start there and then develop your relationship on Facebook at a later time…which of course, at that time, you can use the friend request feature again 🙂

Pinterest just made it possible to message someone within Pinterest. How exciting is that?!

As you probably noticed, simply pressing the ‘add friend’ button doesn’t always work anymore. Even if you have 200+ friends in common, that still doesn’t guarantee a confirmation!

People are busy.  They are not going to spend the time to research you so you have to do a better job at standing out and utilizing one or all of the ways above will do that!

=> Have you used any of these techniques or your own that I didn’t list here? Please share!