Lets talk about favors
One of the more common topics out in the Blogosphere and in the world of Social Media can be summed up in one word – favors. On the one hand you have people who are asking for favors and rationalizing why they should be allowed to ask for favors. On the other side are people who feel like they are asked constantly for favors with no respect or civility.
From where I sit, everybody involved in this argument makes some good points, but I think frustration clouds over better judgment in these kinds of scenarios, so often we see posts or tweets that go a little beyond, “Here’s what I think.” I thought I would take a stab at kind of presenting both sides of the argument here in a pretty rational way, and then you can see if that helps you sort this issue out a bit.
You are asking people to ask you for favors
Here is a sad reality for those of you who feel like you are perpetually inundated with favor-askers.
You’re asking for it.
Now before you shake your head vigorously and deny this, let me tell you that I have solid evidence that this is true. See, one day, I was lucky enough to get a post published on a pretty well-known site. Not five minutes after the post went live, I got a direct message from someone asking me if I could tweet out their post. A bit later in the day, another person asked if we could talk on the phone about their blog in general. This taught me an important lesson. When you go out there in the online world offering advice at no charge, and you start becoming successful at it, people will increase the times they ask you for advice and/or help.
You know this, but you may have forgotten due to the volume of favor requests you’re getting.
The truth may be bitter to swallow, but you need to remember these things:
• If you are posting advice on your site for free, there is no reason why people should feel hesitant about asking you for more advice for free
• If you are openly doing a lot of favors for people, like tweeting out their posts, there is no reason why other people should feel hesitant about asking you to do the same for them
• If your site says something like, “How can I help you?” people will answer that question.
I’m not saying this is right or wrong, good or bad. I’m just saying this is the nature of the beast we’ve created in the online world. People don’t know the different pricing structures you have in your head. They don’t really know that offering this type of advice is much more time-consuming than offering that type of advice. They don’t know that you tweeted out that person’s post because you know that person is going through a hard time and needs a bit of a lift. They don’t know unless you tell them.
And by telling them, I don’t mean writing a post about how much people suck.
You favor-askers aren’t off the hook, though
I get a fair amount of asks during the course of a work week. Sometimes folks will send me a DM asking me to “look at” their post. Sometimes someone will CC me as they tweet out their post. Sometimes someone will ask if I can take a look at their site or at their this or that to offer my advice. Sometimes people just plain ask me for my advice or thoughts on things.
I figured out pretty quickly in my Social Media career that these are all compliments. If people don’t perceive that you’re doing well, they’re not going to want to associate their work with you. However, there are some things favor-askers have done with me, and I’m sure to others, that really need to stop. For example:
• If you barely talk to me and only send me DMs about your posts, that’s going to start wearing on me a bit. At least pretend that we’re friends before you ask me for a favor a day!
• When I do a favor for you, say thank you. I’m happy to help you out but I’ll be happier to repeat my action if you indicate some level of appreciation.
• Don’t be passive aggressive. Be honest. You don’t want me to “look” at your post, you want me to promote it for you. In fact, I would almost prefer if you would say, “Please leave a comment on this post” or “Please tweet this out for me if you like it” so that I know what you are really looking for. If you really want me to just look at your post, please disregard 🙂
• When I do a favor for you, take a little break before asking for the next one. There have been a couple of times where someone has asked me a favor, I’ve done it, and I’ve sent them a message saying, “OK, done.” Their response was something like, “Great! Now can you do this?” That is a sure way to tick people off.
• Make sure you return the favor. It doesn’t have to be robotic and it should be genuine, but if you are asking someone for a lot of favors, you want to try to make sure you are doing favors for them. If you can’t find a reason to help them out, you should probably not ask them to do anything for you.
I think there is a lot of misunderstanding and miscommunication when it comes to online favors. I think on both sides, resentment builds up slowly but surely, and then one lucky person bears the brunt of all of that anger via a tweet or a post (something along the lines of “I’m calling BS on…”).
Try to make sure you are respectful of each other. That’s really all it comes down to. Respect, thought, civility, and some basic manners.
Right?
This is post #73 in The Engagement Series. Thank you for reading!
image Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/pidsmannen
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Excellent and well written – and I wonder if the favor seekers will see themselves?
Respect is something that we do all need to work on within the online world. There seems to often be an unnatural sense of intimacy created by Twitter and Blog followers in some instances – usually one-sided. This then allows for the ease of requesting favors that are usually reserved only for our best friends and close colleagues. Obama is now on Twitter – but unless you actually do petsonallyknow him, this does not translate into an open invitation to be his best pal or to expect him to respond to favor requests.
We are able to connect to people that previously we could on,y observe from afar or never even meet, and it will take time to adjust and remember proper etiquette – and as you so well pointed out – Respect!
Seems I cannot type on my iPad yet, as well as I thought – must practice my name for one 😉
typing is hard for me sometimes and I have no excuse. No worries 🙂
Intimacy is a great word I think. We all feel like we know each other really really well because we talk to each other so often, but we don’t *really* talk in many cases. We are not friends, we are just friendly – but it’s very easy to lose that line and skip to one side or the other.
Great point!
Having just opened my in box to several such requests, I chuckled while reading this today.
Its like the imitation is flattery thing, altho not so much in the blogosphere when your content is copied, to be sure.
People like you or want to be like you …. and thinking you are friendly enough to comply, shows you have made people feel at home and comforatble enough to ask!
Exactly right. In the case of favor-seekers I’m not sure it’s imitation as much as it is affiliation, you know? Like, “Oh, so and so tweeted out my post so now I’m kind of tied to them.” What do you think?
I think you are right. Here is one side of the coin: In the spring of 2010 I asked a favor of someone. It went something like this: “The restaurant where my son is the executive chef has been nominated for…can you vote and RT?” To which I received a response that went something like this: “I only ask my followers to participate in non-profit causes, events, votes, …whatever. Sorry.” That made sense to me and I never asked for any favors again from anyone.
The other side of the coin: About six months ago I met someone via #blogchat. He wanted feedback on the look and feel of his blog. I don’t believe he was looking for a content critique, more a techincal review. I told him I would be glad to offer feedback. I did, he thanked me. I subscribed(still do) to his blog. I read his posts, have often commented. He once got me on skype, but when I started trying to pin him down on what his eventual business goals were…he seemed to get a little upset. The bottomline…he has never once commented on any of my posts, never once RT anything of mine, not that it matters, but the whole encounter is/was a little strange.
I still offer support, ask questions, comment…pass on ideas to my clients and friends. Life goes on.
Judy
hehee 🙂 so true. Life does go on, and crazily so, I might add!
I have only asked for favors on a very few occasions for myself – namely when I was looking for sponsors for the #care4japan effort in March. I sent a message to a person once that they might like my post – I really did think they would, but afterward I just felt dirty, and their failure to respond put the end to such things. That awkward feeling is something I always want to avoid – I don’t know why some people run after it 🙂
Very well said, as always. Brava!
Thanks, Lady 🙂
I think you can tweets people posts out but it is no reason for everyone to bombard you for requests on tweeting things out.
Funny that you mentioned about pretending of being friends…. LOL
It is funny when people also add a laundry list after you just done them a favor.
I have to agree people love favors and sometimes miss out on returning the favor without being asked.
On my side I appreciate your posts and every time you have helped me.
Thanks, Raul. You know I feel the same.
And you know what I mean about pretending to be friends…if you’re going to ask me for favors every day, hey, say good morning too, how about? 🙂
Thanks for stopping by!
Great Post. I would also like to add when charities ask you for a donation, and there are so many great causes, that a gift certificate for an amount off is a good idea because again you are giving away your time and business.
Interesting. I think charities are a bit different – they are asking for help (let’s hope) on behalf of other people they want to help. But incentive almost always helps.
I don’t have an opinion, just an observation about the dogs here at the DogWalk. Sometimes, one of the three dogs will find their way over to me sitting in my chair watching tv (or reading Margie’s blog 🙂 ) and slide on up to me, catch my eye and wag their tail ever-so-slightly. I will reach my hand over the side and scratch their butt or ruffle their ears. And no matter WHERE in the house the other two dogs are, they hear this discreet petting going on and rush over to me, expecting to also get some attention.
That’s all I am going to say 🙂
This sound kind of naive. I actually never thought to ask others for favors. At what point do you think it’s ok to ask for favors. I’ve been building up a network of friends / relationships via blog comments and twitter. 4 months now. I havnt thought to ask anyone to promote my articles. I’ve beeen waiting until i have a product to promote.
Is favor asking a big part of the recipe of success?