Do Facebook birthday
and holiday greetings count as social networking?
You bet they do. Online greetings can count for plenty, when
it comes to keeping up with colleagues, business contacts, target customers,
and friends. It pays to be smart, even in seemingly casual sociability.
Take birthday
greetings, for example.
Annual best wishes on birthdays have long been a hallmark of
savvy business networking. (Excuse the pun. No company affiliation is
intended.) Insurance agents, real estate professionals, and plenty of other
marketers have long practiced this strategy. Consider how many pre-embossed
cards come in the mail each year to mark such an occasion. Now transfer the
same concept to internet networking.
Facebook makes it easy, listing friends’ birthdays each day.
And posts are free. So why not?
But here’s the catch. The birthday connection can be shaky
sometimes.
Allow me to
elaborate.
I manage a Facebook page titled Holidays
Examiner – Madison and More. A key feature of this Facebook holiday page is an
extensive collection of colorful birthday greetings. These include cartoons,
clipart, illustrations, photos, and text art images. I post them to this page
for my own use and for Facebook sharing by any who wish to do so. (The only
rule is that folks use the Facebook “share” button, rather than copying or
saving the pictures to repost.)
Alright. Let’s get back
to the business at hand.
When Facebook alerts me to online friends’ birthdays (pretty
much daily), I choose and send some of these cards to those people. Frequently,
birthday celebrants “like” the greeting posts or even comment on them.
However, an astonishing percentage of online birthday
greeting recipients do not respond or acknowledge the greetings at all. Maybe
they amass such an overwhelming amount of “Happy Birthday” posts that they find
it impossible to do so.
That’s understandable, once in a while.
Here’s the other side of the proverbial coin. Lots of
Facebook friends reciprocate. It’s delightful to receive scores of happy
greetings on one’s own birthday. Plenty of folks don’t bother.
What if a Facebook friend
does not reach out or respond to anything for a long time?
That’s a different story. Eventually, such inaction
logically leads to culling. Friends who aren’t really friends are frequently
deleted.
How can a Facebook
user keep track of which friends actively interact and which don’t?
Actually, it’s easy. Facebook (at least in its current
incarnation) allows each user to view a recap of interactions with any specific
friend. Here’s how it works:
- Open that friend’s Facebook profile page.
- Click the little box with a series of dots (presently located just to the right of the “Message” button in the lower right-hand corner of a friend’s profile banner photo).
- Choose “See Friendship.” (See photo - below.)
- Give it a moment to load. (Sometimes this feature seems to take a little longer than usual.)
- Facebook will produce a log of posts and messages between the user and that particular friend. If you or that friend posted to one another, it shows up. If that person “liked” or commented on anything you put up, it will appear.
Throughout the year, when Facebook offers me daily birthday
lists, I use the “See Friendship” option to determine whether to retain or
remove less-than-active contacts. Sure, I’ve deleted tons of folks on their own
birthdays, but I’m fairly sure they won’t miss the alliance, if they haven’t
participated in it in ages (or at all).
Is it worth the
effort to keep Facebook friends who fail to interact at all?
Is there any value in sending birthday and holiday
greetings, year after year, to contacts who seemingly ignore them? Is it
valuable to keep online friends, if they never reach out or respond?
Perhaps that decision depends upon the purpose for which one
initially befriended such folks (or for which one accepted their offers of
Facebook friendship). If they are regarded as current or prospective business clients
or contacts, perhaps some forbearance is in order. However, if these
individuals are to be regarded as possible personal allies, then it may be time
to reexamine the merits of continuing such one-sided efforts.
Image/s:
Birthday-themed graphics
Adapted from public domain art
Facebook screenshot
Fair use
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