Why do you participate in social networks? Let’s even take this offline, and talk about why you participate in anything social in the first place.

Do you go to your block party armed with a pile of business cards and wondering how many people you can pitch while you’re there? You’re “that guy”. If a gathering with friends at a bar is always about who you might meet and drop your elevator pitch to, you’re “that guy”.

I don’t want to be that…er… girl.

There’s a small voice in my head of Alec Baldwin telling me I should “Always Be Closing”, but I’m just not in the game of life for that reason alone. I’m probably breaking the hearts of business advisors across the map if I tell them that meeting new people is fun for me for the interesting factor first. Sometimes I forget about the business factor altogether. But my gut tells me that my business will succeed through those relationships eventually. I’ve worked hard on being able to tell people who I am and what I do, but it’s equally important to me that they know that I love music, or that I’m a voracious reader, that I’ve broken 11 bones riding horses or that I’m a food geek (even though I suck at pairing wine).

My other “issue” is that I give. A lot. It brings me joy to give something to someone else – a gift, a bit of knowledge, help when they need it. I’m no Mother Theresa, but I really and truly love sharing bits of myself with people. It’s the human connection that drives me through just about everything that I do.

Now to the bigger point.

It doesn’t always have to be about selling something, or pitching something, or finding the angle. Sometimes it’s enough to be real, to be personal, to be flawed and to not take ourselves so damn seriously.  And hey you, business guy? That goes for you too. I’m much more likely to want to be part of your business circle if you make me part of your personal circle first.

In the wake of his epic Social Media ROI post, Jason Falls put out on twitter a phrase resulting from so much of the feedback (and I’m paraphrasing):

Businesses don’t get customers from social media, they keep them.

Why? Because your engagement across social networks – online or off – forges an interpersonal relationship that cannot be directly quantified in terms of sales numbers. And you know what? It shouldn’t be, dammit. I, for one, don’t want to be distilled into a number or a sale or a transaction or a click. And as a business owner, I want every one of my contacts and clients to believe in their relationship with me personally, because I truly care about their well being and success.

I do believe that relationships (and therefore social media) have an ROI, but some of them are far more human than they are operational. Part of it is a leap of faith, my friends. You have to trust in the golden rule a bit, and know that treating people well brings you good karma and success. Yell at me if you wish, but you cannot ignore the intangibles in business, no matter how hard you try.

So, here lies my brief manifesto for the day. I know I’ve beat this horse a bit to death lately, but it’s really important to me – as a person, as a blogger, as a business woman. If I don’t yet know you, please say hello.  You can find my phone number, email, and social network profiles all on this site. I mean it. You matter to me, and I intend to prove it.

image by notsogoodphotography