Last week I was followed on Twitter by someone whose bio said they owned a digital marketing agency and a recruitment consultancy.

I tweeted a “Hi” and asked if anything in particular had triggered their follow (I don’t use tools that send auto-DMs to each new follower – they’re so obviously automated and impersonal).
In reply I received an odd response that didn’t answer my question: “Are you on LinkedIn?”

Curious about where this was leading I replied “Yes, wouldn’t be without it.”

A couple of hours later I received a LinkedIn invite from this individual. Rather than ignore the invite I declined explaining that I only accept LinkedIn invites from people I’ve met in person.
The next day I got a spam DM advertising a job opening that was in no way relevant to me. Needless to say I unfollowed and blocked the offending account.

What Went Wrong

Social media accelerates the know – like – trust –buy – advocate cycle. That’s one reason social media is great for business.

But it only accelerates the cycle – it doesn’t do away with it!

What this person did wrong was to jump straight from “Hello” to trust, without working through the know and like stages first.

The Lesson

Don’t be in too much of a rush to close the deal. Just as you wouldn’t ever ask for the address book of a person you’ve just been introduced to at a cocktail party, you shouldn’t try to do the same in the virtual world.

Instead, use social media to get to know new contacts better. Discover where clients and prospects hang out on social media and learn what they’re talking about and what they care about. You can save time and make conversations more relevant when you already know someone’s areas of interest and mutual connections.

Relationships that might have taken years to build can now form in a matter of weeks… days… minutes… without skipping the know and like stages and without fear of coming across as spammy.

Linda Cheung will be speaking at the 2012 Turbo Charge Your Business Forum, click here for more information