Rory Cullen, Kaizen Software Developer

If you are like me, you hate spam emails.  If you are like you, you might even hate getting my updates from the blog.  I need some feedback on that topic.

As you know, I am trying to get this blog out to as many people as possible.  In the beginning, I started just sending the link out via Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  This would come across as a Status update on each, and that was that.  No follow-up, and no additional push.  Can you tell I’m not in sales?  Anyway, that worked pretty well.  Then, I realized that I have a fair number of contacts with whom I only communicate via email.  Perhaps we are not connected via social media for some reason.  This would include my parents, former co-workers not yet on LinkedIn, etc.  In fact, it really began with my family.  This led to another revelation:  Having a Facebook account doesn’t mean you check it every day.  In fact, this seems even more prevalent in LinkedIn from my own observations.

For example, most people I meet who are in the job hunt are on LinkedIn every day.  They might be adding contacts, researching companies, or otherwise interacting with their profile data and groups.  They are active users, engaged in the tools, and most likely to see your status update.  Most people I meet who are not looking for a job, excluding recruitors, are not using LinkedIn every day.  They have an account that they set up at some point, but they aren’t checking regularly, nor updating regularly.  Although they may get a daily or weekly update via email, are they opening that email at all?  If so, are they clicking the link on my status update?

Issues with using Twitter to propagate your message:  Although it was born out of txting and designed for cell phone updates, many people primarily use Twitter via a desktop application (Twhirl, Tweetdeck, etc.) or the Twitter site.  In addition, unless you are organizing your incoming messages using one of the tools available, you are likely to get more messages than you can keep up with.  I get a lot of messages each day, and mostly skim through them to see it there is anything worth reading.  Yes, I am more likely to read a message from someone I know, but this leads to my point.  If you don’t know me, will you click my link without a compelling reason?  Not to mention that many people follow you just so you will follow them, but they probably never read your tweets.

Facebook?  The average user has 120 friends, per this study in February 2009, and I have slightly more than this.  The way Facebook is set up, you basically see a stream of updates from your friends.  I usually run through it once or twice a day.  However, if I cut that down to once per day, or every other day, I might not see people’s updates at all.  I can also “hide” updates from certain users, so not all of those contacts are seeing my updates regardless.

How do I better communicate with the social media networks?  I admit, I have no ideas for Facebook or Twitter.  I could send messages to groups of people in Facebook, but that seems abusive.  For LinkedIn, however, I have the option to export the contact information, and add them to my email listing.  In this manner, they would basically receive the blog post link directly to their inbox.  We have an established relationship, so I don’t feel this is a violation of our understanding.  I am debating this as an option.

To my final group of contacts:  People who have given me their card at a networking event.  Some of these people I had long conversations with, some I met in passing.  Most I have only seen once or twice.  In almost all cases, they are unemployed, due to the types of meetings I am attending lately.  Some of these people have become LinkedIn contacts already.  By giving me their card, does that imply that I could add them to an e-mailing list?  I am thinking of compiling the addresses from the cards received, and using them to expand the reach of the blog.  I would include an option to “unsubscribe”, although this would involve sending an email to me directly, which would make most people feel like jerks.  I could do some additional research and possible create an automated unsubscribe link.  Either way, they could just tag me as spam and have their email eliminate me automatically, with me none-the-wiser.  Thoughts on this?  They gave me a their card in an effort to network, as did I.  Part of my networking effort is this blog.  Ergo, emailing them my blog should be ok, right?

I am a big “do unto others” guy, ignoring any religious implications therein.  My personal feeling is that sending out a blanket email is not really a violation of the LinkedIn connection, nor of the business card exchange.  I do receive some blanket emails from contacts I have made via these methods.  If it is someone I have a connection to, I usually read the email.  If it is someone I am not, I only read it if the subject seems compelling.  I am ok with this same approach from the people I contact.  I am not selling product, nor calling door-to-door.  I just want to get out my message, and find a good job.  I think most people are happy to help if you tell them how.

I welcome your opinions, and really would like the feedback.  Sometimes, we are too close to a situation to see clearly.  Please comment below, or email me at WillWorkForFree@gmail.com.