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Rejection always hurts, no doubt. In fact, when I worked as a psychologist, rejection (fear of it, or getting over it) was, perhaps, at the root of many of the issues which brought my patients to my therapy practice. I heard so much conversation about this topic that I actually wrote a book on strategies for overcoming rejection.
Now, working as a social marketer and online business consultant, I see that rejection continues to be an issue- but not in quite the same way as I’ve seen before. Now, people are experiencing social media rejection, and wondering what to do about it.
Social media rejection can occur in several ways:
One way is that your request to connect is either denied (harsh!) or ignored (vague.). You might reach out to someone that you know, or would like to know, and get a strong negative reaction or response back. In most cases, you’ll be wondering what happened- what you did to set this person off. Similarly, you might reach out to someone, and they just never seem to get back to you on your connection request.
A second way social media rejection occurs is when you find that you’ve been culled from a list- whether it be taken out of Top Friends on Facebook, or unfollowed on Twitter, or similar. The thing about this is that it might not always be clear what happened. I know, for instance, that sometimes my Twitter account behaves strangely, and my account unfollows people I actually still want to be connected to. I believe, sometimes, that this might be due to some kind of technical glitch, or just a ‘drop’ by the Twitter servers. Anyway, the point is that sometimes people get unfollowed- and then contact me, wondering what happened. Likewise, I know there are times where I’ve been unfollowed, and I’m not sure why.
The third way (more subtle) that social media rejection occurs is when you try to take part in a conversation or make a connection and it is directly rebuffed or ignored, in real time. Again, the challenge with this is you can’t always know if the rebuff or ignore was intentional or accidental.
As with any technologically based method of communication, glitches do happen.
That being said, what about when you are sure that you’ve been rejected? When there is no doubt that you’ve been unfriended or unfollowed on purpose?
Even though it’s virtual, rejection still hurts. Research says that social rejection can actually cause physical pain- a holdover, anthropologists believe, from evolutionary times, where we needed to be part of the ‘tribe’ in order to survive.
Today, while rejection may not impact our survival, it doesn’t make it easier to deal with.
So how to deal with social media rejection? Here are some ideas:
1) If you were unfriended or unfollowed by someone and you’re very surprised, why not reach out and ask what happened? If appropriate, call the person. It might be a technical glitch (as outlined above), or it might be an indication of something that needs to be discussed. While it can seem a bit awkward, at first, to call and say, “Hey, I noticed you stopped following me on Twitter.”- (I mean, who wants to be a social media narcissist, right?), you have to consider whether the relationship is worth the awkwardness. If it’s an important connection, I think the little bit of awkwardness is worth it.
2) If you aren’t close enough to the person to contact them offline, but you are still wondering what happened, try to reach out to them directly. @ message them on Twitter or leave a comment on their Wall- something nonconfrontational, like “hey, just wanted to connect/reach out/get in touch.” This may show them that you do care about them and want to connect or communicate.
3) You can ignore it or just move on. Not all situations are going to warrant follow up or follow through. It’s also wise not to spend a lot of time brooding over people who step out of your social stream. In the same way you can’t focus too much when people unsubscribe from your email list, you can’t focus too much when people unsubscribe from your networks. You never know how or why people make the choices they do, and so it’s not worth being too upset over. You’ve heard this before, but don’t take it personally.
Of course, though, the goal here is moderation and balance. If you find that significant people are unfollowing you or unfriending you, there may be something in your approach that needs adjustment (or maybe your account got hacked.)
But like any other kind of relationship in real life, your online social connections will evolve- with people moving out, and, hopefully, new people moving in.
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I’ve been thinking about the topic of this blog post for a while. It’s lately becoming more and more evident to me that social media is seductive- both in a business sense, and a personal one. On a business level, social media is seductive because it represents a way to create new relationships and fill our business pipeline. Done right, social media can be the last lead generation strategy you’ll ever need. (Not that I’d recommend this, it’s always wise to have multiple marketing channels to best stabilize your business.)
The personal element is the one I want to focus on in this blog post, because it’s this element that isn’t talked about very much. Social media is seductive- and it’s easy to be seduced. What this means is that you can be pretty much anyone you want to be within the social media space- and you can present yourself as more outgoing, charming, vivacious, or even attractive than you are in real life (especially if you use a picture of someone who is much hotter than you.)
We all have a desire to be liked and admired and respected, and social media gives us a way to do this. In some ways, everyone wants to be a social media rockstar, to benefit from the accolades, recognition and adulation that comes from everyone loving you. (Or at least seeming to.)
The problem with this, as with any kind of online (and potentially one-sided) relationship is that no matter how scintillating or fantastic you are within social media, you are, at the end of the day, still a real person with real assets and real liabilities.
Social media connections and online relationships have a place in your life, but should never substitute for real life/offline connections with people who have a chance to spend time with you, know you, and hang out with you- not just worship an image of you.
The other challenge in terms of balancing social media with real life relationships is that in social media, you can always find someone to talk to on Twitter, and you’ll be able to find people who agree with everything you say. Your personal popularity can be at an all time high online, but this doesn’t automatically translate into a golden life offline.
In fact, your real life relationships may suffer from too much social media popularity. I was speaking with a client earlier today who has recently joined Twitter. She has been spending a lot of time learning the system and has been tweeting very often. She has made some powerful connections and constantly feels drawn to tweet multiple times per day- even when she has agreed to spend time with her husband. Any lull in their conversation sees her picking up her Iphone and updating her Twitter status. It’s lately been causing some strain in her marriage because technology is, at times, more powerful and more consuming than her real life relationships.
With the constant stimulation and 24/7/365 access we can have to social media networks, it becomes more important that we create some kind of balance in our use of the social media sites. The psychology of social media is such that we do desire connections. We just need to make sure that the lure of our online connections doesn’t overshadow our interest in our offline ones.
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