What is a Friend?

"You’ve got a friend request from …"

"… would like to add you as a friend"

These are what we’ve been seeing in our e-mail inboxes for a little while now. Sometimes they’re from close acquainances, sometimes from long-lost buddies. Often though, they’re from someone who I never considered a friend, or have no idea who he is.

Click. We’re friends!

I have 500+ connections, 12,000 friends, and a million buddies. So why aren’t my business referrals rolling in?

Let’s have a look at the process: Reuven is talking to Shimon about a venture he’s getting involved with, and mentions that he is looking for a widget salesman to get things going. Shimon remembers of the top of his head that Levi deals with widgets, and perhaps they should talk. Reuven sends Shimon a reminder e-mail and Shimon sends him Levi’s contact info. A new relationship is born.

The key is that Shimon is familiar enough with Levi to remember what he does for a living. At that point, Levi could be his brother, a former co-worker, or a fellow business forum member. They might have spoken once, or a hundred times. If it was a hundered times, there’s almost certainly a chunk of Shimon’s active memory reserved for Levi. If they spoke once, it was either recently or he recently received an update from Levi (e-mail, newsletter, blog feed, Twitter, whatever) which refreshed Shimon’s memory.

For myself, and probably most men in the world, we aren’t motivated to do relationship maintenance. We cherish the friends that we have, can pick up old friendships whenever without hurt feelings, and don’t feel guilty when we lose touch with some friends. But in business, if you’re hoping to use your friend network for referrals and growth, you’d better be doing something to manage those friendships.

Remember: "Remove as a Friend" is also only a click away.