9 Methods to increase your relationship with your online relations for lead generation or sales

The Problem of online relations:

You have many online relationships and friends on a multiple of social websites.
LinkedIn, Xing, Viadeo, Plaxo, OpenNetworkers, Ecademy, Ning, Facebook, …
Many friendships and relationships online, but are they higher quantity and higher quality as Anne Truitt Zelenka claims?

Probably not:
As Steven Rubel of Micropersuasion writes: “The Web Changes How We Define Friendship“, most of these friendships are just a connection on the Internet. You cannot take much advantage or use it when it comes down to do business or getting leads.

The reason is because there has not been any real relation or experience together with your “Friends”.
Thus there is no emotional link or bond.
In most cases people just click the “Accept” button in order to establish the relationship.

How to increase your relationships online?

There are several methods to increase your relation or closeness with your online “Friends”.
The objective is to engage them or to get more communications interactions with your relations.

1. The Good Cause
Choose a good cause that could appeal to most of your friends.
Then explain the good cause and what you plan to do for it known to all of your relationships.
Try to engage them too for this good cause.
If you get them engaged, you are communicating and experiencing together.
Thus you have become much closer to your relations.

2. Start a campaign
Start a campaign for a common goal of your friends.
Ask them to sign a petition or a list.
Update them regularly on the number of signatures, then on the progress and advances made towards obtaining the common goal.
You have become one step closer to your online friends as they identify you with the campaign, the list or petition and the achievement if successful.

3. Define a common enemy
If you can define a common enemy then you will be able to engage your relations pretty fast.
You will be able to act as the aggregator of all information against the common enemy.
People will communicate with you and identify you as their leader.
You must keep in control of the actions taken against the enemy.
Needless to say but you have become very close to all involved.

4. Try to meet in real life
Invite your friends to a conference, trade show or even a local venue.
Ask them to meet when you are attending a conference, trade show or any other event.
Before meeting them, plan what you are going to ask or say. Find a subject for a conversation in order to make the meeting worthwhile and not just “Hello” and “How are you doing?”.
Make the encounter interesting enough to be remembered.

5. Experiencing online together
If you cannot meet face to face or engage them for a good cause, campaign or find an enemy then you need to have an experience together.
An online experience requires less effort and time from your friend.
Online experience can be an:
- Instant Messaging chat
- Video chat
- Online game
You need a good subject to invite and overhaul the friend to chat with you on that matter.

6. Ask for help
Instead of sending out information or imposing your thinking, asking for help often works much better to get people involved.
Thus you need to define a problem or a situation, where your relationships think they are experienced in or are a specialist. This will generate a stream of information with advice for you.
The advice or information given are not important, it is the conversation that has been started between your relationships and you that are important.

7. Email exchange
If any of the above works, sending an email on interesting matters about information you have created or found on the Internet can spark a reply email and thus a conversation.
However you need to feed the conversation continuously to keep it going.

8. Start a blog
If even emails don’t help, then by starting a blog you can express yourself and your ideas.
Then you need to invite your online friends to read your blog by sending them an email.
Of course a blog is not a person to person relation and it gets people less involved. Still it is better than no interaction at all.
If your online relationships start taking interest in your articles or ideas, you will spark a conversation if they start to write comments.
Moreover the blog will allow expanding the number of friends you have.

9. Micro blogging is less effort and less time consuming
Writing a blog consumes a lot of time and effort.
On the other hand Micro blogging is:
- Easier to write as the messages are limited to 140 characters.
- Faster to write due to the short message.
- Anytime anywhere: posts can be created from the internet and mobile phones by texting (sms)
- Friends can follow you on the Internet and on their mobile phones (sms) anytime and anywhere.
Example: Twitter, Plurk, Pownce or Jaiku.
Of course even your blog posts need to be interesting to keep the interest of your friends.
The goal is to have your online relationships reply on the same micro blogging platform or even better to have them addressing you directly by email or a personal message.

Online “Friends” become friends

By getting closer and becoming more related with your online relations, you have reached another status in the life of each of your online “friends”.
Now it is more likely you get help when you ask for a favor, information or contacts for business reasons.

What do you do in order to get closer with your online relationships?