Do you like to meet and socialize with fascinating new people?

When you go to a conference or event, are you open to meeting the most successful people in the room?

If the keynote speaker were to come up to you and strike up a conversation, would you be happy about that? I bet you would be.

What about if you happen to be in a conversation with a colleague and the keynote speaker comes up to say hi to your colleague and you are drawn into the convo? Score.

That is one of the reasons why we go to conferences, right? To meet new people.

We all know how good it can be for our career and life to have relationships with industry giants, organization leaders, talented authors, and such.

Heck, you might even have your photo taken with them and then be able to tell the story back at the office or to the grandkids. Even if they can’t help your career, but are just plain good people and you become friends, that has improved your life.

Would you consider a conference a success if you became friends with some of the top dogs in your industry?

If it is so cool to do that at a conference then why don’t we want to do that online?

I personally know people that have been on Twitter for months and they still only follow 45 people, for instance. They say that they believe in quality over quantity. I think this is a false choice.

If someone advocates for following complete strangers that are boring, geographically far removed, have no redeeming qualities, etc….then I guess that is right. You don’t need those people clogging your Twitter feed.

But what about top people in your industry? What about the author of the book you just read and loved? What about the top thought leaders in your field? Why wouldn’t you want to be available to be friends with them?

Think about this.

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the top 1/10 of 1% of Americans are very cool. Personally, I think the % is much higher but let’s be conservative here.

Since there are more than 300,000,000 Americans, 1/10 of 1% is 300,000. That means that there are at least 300,000 cool people right here is your backyard that you are closed off to if you won’t reach out to strangers.

What is the risk?

If you reached out to one of these people every so often, the worst thing that could happen is that you would now be following someone exceedingly cool. If they don’t follow you back you haven’t lost a thing. If they do decide to follow you back and you provide humor or other value, or you make yourself helpful to them by retweeting their posts, or wish them a good day when they need it, all of a sudden you might have the spark of a new friendship. It won’t happen day one.

But it does happen over time.

I can tell you without hesitation that I have done this successfully many times. I have reached out to multiple nationally known speakers, authors, and leaders. I have established relationships with industry leaders that I wouldn’t have gotten to know otherwise.

This applies to Facebook too.

There is nothing wrong with accepting the friend request of a fascinating stranger on Facebook or LinkedIn. At the same time, it is smart to reach out to the people you find the most interesting in your field or hobby.

A future blog post will be about people that go to networking events and then just sit with and socialize with co-workers. I hate that!

Uggggg.