Strategically Accepting Friends Requests: Facebook Lead Generation

Would you like to build your network and grow your business? Using social media platforms, such as Facebook, is one way to accomplish this. You can increase your chances of getting more leads by friending other people on Facebook. Facebook, however, has so many users that it can be challenging to decide who to friend and who not to. You can, however, take some simple steps to set yourself up for success.

Make sure you only accept friend requests from people whose profiles and intentions seem valuable to you before accepting them. Are there any common interests between you and them? Do they have any mutual connections? You may want to decline their friend request if they don't seem to add any value to both of you. Once you accept a friend request, don't stop there. For the relationship to continue, you need to start a conversation. This does not mean sending a copy-pasted cold message.

The key to social media interaction is to approach it as if you were in person. Introduce yourself, ask them questions, and try to establish a connection. As a result, they will remember you and choose your products and services when they need them. Friending people on Facebook is a great way to grow your network and generate more leads. However, it's essential to be selective about who you accept friend requests from and to focus on creating genuine conversations with potential leads. By following these tips and avoiding being spammy tammy, you can leverage the power of social media to build your business and achieve greater success.

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Transcript

You tell me when you get a friend request from someone on Facebook, we're gonna talk about this specifically for Facebook. Are you weirded out? Are you excited? Are you confused? Are you angry? Are you happy? Are you curious? What do you feel when you see that friend request come through on Facebook? Well, a lot of people are confused.

Or they're like wtf, which basically is the same thing. So in today's podcast episode, I am gonna talk about friending on Facebook. This is something that I talk about with my clients, my private clients, because if you're in the online space, heck, if you're in any type of business, you're in the relationship building.

And the name of the game is growing your network and getting more leads, and one of the best places to do that is to tap into your warm market, which most of the time, generally speaking in social media, in the land of social media is on Facebook. And so I wanna help you know who to friend, why you should befriending them, who not to friend, what to do.

When you do send that friend request, or someone actually send you a friend request, you're gonna know exactly how to spend your. In the most effective way that will help you bring in that cash money. All right, let's go.

Hey, hey, it's your girl, Emmy Cornwell, Instagram biz coach and social selling expert. Welcome to the Hey, hey, Emmy show. This is a podcast where we talk about all things that will be helpful for you and your. Everything from Instagram tips and tricks to health hacks to relationships, and definitely some Jesus, basically everything in between Proverbs 31 and Tupac.

I am so excited to party with you in each and every episode because ain't no party like a Hey, hey Emmy party. Can I get. All right. Let's get into it, sister.

Hey. Hey. What's going on? How are you, sister, friend, sister, girl, sister, sister. Oh my goodness. So good to be here with you. I know. Last episode I was sharing my excitement. And sharing a little bit about catching up with what's been going on with me and our family. And I am very proud to say, and maybe you will hear some baby COOs if you are lucky enough, but I have Mr.

Cam Kekoa. Rader. Oh yeah, buddy. Oh, you're so cute. Yes. I love you. I have him right here, chest to chest, doing some kangaroo. In my boga wrap. I'm still getting used to it. That thing is like a maze. I don't know if you've ever seen those things, but they're so long. There's like 50 million ways to wear them.

Almost like those pashmina that were super hot in the two thousands. You could wear those scars 5 million different ways, and I can only remember one. Anyways, he is here with me. We are podcasting together and we are bringing you the goods on friending people on Facebook. We're gonna talk about both who you should.

And what to do when you do friend them. And then also, what if someone asks you like, what if someone is sending you a friend request? Now gone are the days in Facebook that you actually have to know the person that you're friending. Okay? You are 100% given permission to utilize Facebook, this platform, this social platform.

That's a key word that we're gonna talk about. The social platform, social being the key word for networking, for growing your network. For meeting new people. For making new friends, however you wanna say it. Okay. Now this episode is great for anyone in business because like I said at the beginning, if you're in business, you're in the relationship building business.

You have to constantly be filling your pipeline and, and getting. Prospects, people to talk to. Okay. Conversations equals cash. And if you're not talking to anyone, you're definitely not making any money. Okay. But a lot of these references, I just have personal experience in regards to the network marketing space specifically.

It is, uh, industry and space that is notorious for, Hey, girl, hey, messages. But it is not, and hopefully you hear me. It is not the only industry that does that. Okay. Other industries are not going unscathed here. It happens everywhere. There's shady Susans and shady Samanthas every which way you can go on social media.

So when you get a friend request, what are your feelings? Right? Like, let's, let's start there. Let's start with the people who are friend requesting you as a business owner. Do you get excited? Are you confused? Like, are you angry? What, what is it? Well, I think it depends on a couple different things. How is the person interacting with you?

Like, how are they connecting with you? Are they friending you and then automatically sending you a message? Now, now people can send each other messages without being friends. But I don't know about you. I always forget about that. And it goes into a different like inbox or a different place in Facebook that I always forget about.

Like those messages, I, I even forget what they're called. That is not necessarily a good thing or a good business practice because there could be some leads in that, that specific mailbox in your Facebook. But generally speaking, Let's just talk about the people who have you, you know, you've accepted them as friends.

First and foremost. When someone sends me a friend request, I go to their page. I look at I give 'em about four seconds to gimme a first impression and I try and analyze in those four seconds what do they want from me, right? And what do they want from me? What do they do and do we have friends in common?

If we don't have any friends in common, and I can't really tell what they do. And so I don't really know if they want something from me, like are they gonna try and sell me something or are they want what I'm selling? Those are some of the questions that I ask myself really quickly in a four second time that will determine if I accept their friend requests.

 Some of the people I do not accept their friend requests. Men. I don't need any more guy friends. Okay. Unless I went to high school with you maybe. But even that I'm, I'm like questioning.  Definitely not men who with names I cannot pronounce, or characters that aren't letters in the English alphabet.

We are not accepting those people. I do not usually accept really friend requests from people in my company because they now we can follow you on Facebook, right? You can hit the follow button and they don't have to be friends with you in order for them to. Gain your content. A lot of times people in the same company, they just wanna see what you're doing so they can copy you.

And not, not all is in bad intention, but I know that because I do what I do as an online business coach and a content creator in the digital space, and I have success that most people who wanna connect with me in my company is because they wanna see what I'm doing. And that's great. And I love that.

That's very flattering. But also, You can pay me, like you can pay me, right? You can pay to pick my brain. And there, there are just other ways that you and I can stay connected if that's your main goal. So those are just some of the people that I do not usually accept. What is the other one, if someone, all they're doing is posting like re-shares or memes or they don't have a profile picture, Themselves as a person.

That's actually one of my top red flags. If you have a profile picture that's of your cat or of the American flag or something that is not you, most likely, you're not my ideal client to purchase any of my products or services. And also you're most likely not a great prospect for me to speak to you and share with you the opportunity of social.

Which is the affiliate marketing that I do in the health and wellness space, right? So I usually don't re, I usually don't accept friend requests from those people again. You can follow me. Okay. That's fine. Absolutely. 3 99 to do that. So think about who you're accepting as your friends. Now, if you have lower numbers.

Cause I think I've hit like the 5,000. If you have lower numbers, maybe the leniency on who you accept as a friend maybe gets a little more loosey-goosey. You have to decide again, what's best for you in your business. So say my friend requests someone and they send me a message and they just hop right into their offer.

They're just like, and I talked about this in that episode about like not to be a spammy Tammy, and like Facebook fails and what not to do. That's not cool. Okay? Most of the time I'm probably gonna ignore them.  Maybe reverse recruit them, but most likely probably not.  It just feels gross to me. Now, if someone is like, wanting to actually know, like ask the question I love questions.

I think the success of your business and your life rises and falls on the ability for you to ask really great questions. Then I might play along. Right. I'm, I might be curious and see where that connection leads. Again, I've probably done the vetting in upfront with accepting their friend request or not.

So if I have accepted their friend request and they've gone out of their way to start a conversation with me, most likely I've already qualified them as a quality lead. Mm-hmm. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna get in a conversation. I'm gonna build, I'm gonna be social. We are going to put the social back and social media.

Did you know that social media is really meant to replicate, quote unquote real life? Okay, so if you were invited to a party, I really want you to listen to this, this metaphor, this analogy. If you were invited to a party and you walked in, you went through the front door and you saw across the. You know the host, right?

And your friend, and you went up and talked to them and you caught up for a little bit. They took your coat, you gave them, you know, whatever you brought for the potluck, right? You got a drink, you're chatting it up, and then like you pan over and you see a new face, you most likely, not even the most outgoing people, not even.

Okay. And I will talk to people who have two ears and who will listen to me, but not even me. You would not walk up to that new person that you have no clue. You've never met them and immediately say, Hey, let's be friends. Yeah. See you can't. Cam thinks so too. I don't know if you heard that. You make the cutest noises, you would not do that.

That is so weird. Now you may do that later. And that's why I just kind of went over some of the precursors of how, how I qualify leads is, okay, do we have mutual friends? Do we have something in common? What do they want? What do what I think they want? That is kind of doing a precursor to building a relationship with them.

But that's if they, Fred requested me. Now you, again, once you start to get to know that person, you may do it. Right. So if you're at that party, you end up like meeting them at the punch bowl. What are we in the fifties?  You know what I'm saying? You, you somehow get in the same space as them at this party and you start chatting and you, what do you do?

You ask them questions. Hey, what's your name? Who, how, how do you know so-and-so? Right. How do you know the host of the party? Oh my gosh, that's so cool. Like, what do you do for a living? You're asking them questions, which by the way, these questions are questions that you. You know, when I was an avocare, they would teach us how to f what's called form people.

It's like family, occupation, recreation. And I don't even remember the M, but it's like these types of questions that you would ask people to build the relationship, to get to know people. Okay. So maybe you, do you find that you guys love to both work out and you're gonna go work out together? I don't know.

You just, there are some people, you just hit it off right with right away. Or, or you want to continue that relationship or want to get to know them better. You wanna stay connected. So maybe at the end of that interaction, you're like, Hey, we should stay connected. Right? That is more natural and organic than walking up immediately all weird, like, and saying like, we should be friends.

Okay. That's real life. And people do that on social media too, and it's weird. It is so, so, so weird. There's so many different life metaphors actually, when it comes to. Social media, I've talked about previously, the house party metaphor in regards to specifically like your storefront, like your business card of your Instagram and um, you know, the flow of the party and how that relates to the flow of your, your bio and optimizing it.

But when I was on a call the other day with a client, we were talking about this cuz she's like, okay, I'm in this Facebook group, which is another, which is a great place you should. Gaining new friends and new connections and expanding your network. 100%. That is going to be like another kind of pre-qualifier of why you would want to friend someone, right?

So I talked about people who want to friend you. We're gonna talk about now you who you should friend. Well, one of those is in Facebook groups because you have something in common. Remember that was what I talked, one of the things I talked about. You could have mutual friends, but in this case, you're most likely gonna have something in common.

That's why you're in that specific. Topic-based Facebook group, and she's a teacher, and she was asking me like, how do I like, essentially sell to people? Right. Without being spammy, without getting kicked out of the group, without thinking that, well, and she, she has worked with me long enough to know, I'm just trying to like simplify it for you.

She's worked with me long enough to know that's not why you're in the group. It's just to sell people right away. She understands the concept of building relationship for, for conversion. Ex connection equals conversation, which then equals the cash. So you're connecting and Facebook really helps you out because they give you, there's a group for everything.

So she's just like, what do I do? Do I just go like, friend, request a bunch of people or do I like, just like message them? They're, they're, you don't just go friend a bunch of people that is run really good way to get kicked out of a group you want to connect to do that if you're not friends yet. So the first step is not to friend them.

The first step is to connect with them, like their stuff, comment on their posts interact with them within the group, which is the safe space. Then if you start to interact with someone regularly, consistently. Enough where you feel like you wanna, again, stay connected. Like the example I shared in real life then.

Yeah, 100%. You friend them. You 100% friend them. Now here is, here's where some people and some coaches and some people in the industry and thought leaders differ. A lot of people will teach once you friend someone that you should go message them. Now, back in the day, I used to do that and I used to send some God awful.

Cheesy, inauthentic was never something I would say in real life, even though I liked the idea. I would send something like, Hey, I see that you know, you are a business owner and I love connecting with like-minded women. And then I would ask some question, oh my gosh. I would never say, although I do love connecting with like-minded women, I would never.

That, that is not vernacular. I would use, that is not terminology, that is not language I would use. My ideal client wouldn't use that. So it just was awful. It didn't work out well. And it, and let me tell you, it got me zero business almost like when I had my, uh, avocare sticker on the back of my car, which I still, I saw a Sensi sticker the other day on rolling on I five.

Oh my gosh. Do people still put those on their vehicles? I thought for sure I would at least get a date when I had. Mine, but I didn't get a date and I didn't get business. And so it's the same concept here. I don't believe you friending someone and then sending them a message like, oh my gosh, I gotta find it. This was even in a chat that I am in, that is For my wellness affiliate marketing company. And I was just baffled that people are still sending this. I think that's might have been one of the things that spurred this on as well.

This made me cringe so, so bad. Oh Lord. I hope you don't listen to my podcast. And if you do, um, hopefully no. I am sharing, obviously not your name, but sharing out of love that there's just a better way.

Hi. I literally love connecting on social media. I am a holistic health net and love all things fitness and supplements. Please let me know if there is ever anything I can help you with. Have the best day. Okay? There's another one I wanna share with you. Horrible examples of quote unquote welcome messages that people are teaching others to do.

And I'm telling you, 100%, knock it off. Stop it. It's weird. You wouldn't walk up to someone at a party and say that you would never walk up to someone around and say, I, first of all, talk about yourself. I mean, don't you know the first rule of building relationships and creating. Friendships is you ask people about them.

People love to talk about themselves. Clearly this person potentially does, but it's not about you. I talk about this all the time. Your content is not about you. It's about helping your ideal client take one step closer to her both. So if you have a lot of sentences, whether it's in your content or a message in Facebook Messenger that has the word I in it, you probably need to stop and reevaluate before you hit sent.

Okay? So that's the first thing is this has a lot of, I. And I don't care enough about you because I don't know you, not because I'm not a caring person, but I literally do not know you yet. So I have no connection that would lead me to care if you're a health nut and love fitness and supplements. You know what I would say if someone came up to me and said that like at a party or a gym or even think about dating, honestly, social media's a lot like dating.

Like if some guy walked to me like, uh, hey girl. I'm a health nut and I am love my muscles. I would be like, cool, bro. Keep it moving. And that's what I would think to this person if they sent me this. The second thing that's not great about this message is it doesn't end on a question. So again, it's not continuing the conversation and because it's not continuing the conversation.

Really, it's keeping it about you. And this person is probably not a self selfish person. This person's probably super kind and super nice, but what it comes off is it comes off that it's about you and you just want something from them. You wanna take, take, take. And that's not what we teach here. We talk about giving and we talk about the radio station with 'em, what's in it for them?

And that does not, this would be so weird in real life, okay? We are not putting the social back in social media. First glance, people might think it is because it's a quote unquote nice message. Great. It's not gonna actually convert. And are you doing this business as a extensive hobby or do you actually wanna make money?

Well, I'm guessing you wanna make money because you have dreams and goals and visions that require dollars. So do you wanna send nice messages or do you wanna send nice messages that are also effective because you're knowing what to say? I'm guessing it's a latter. Here's the second. I do my best to turn Facebook friends into real friends.

So it's, I'm sorry I have a hard time reading it, not sarcastically. Um, I do my best to turn Facebook friends into real friends, so it's great to meet you. I'd love to hear all about you. Exclamation mark. Okay. Similar things. It's about you, but it needs to be about them. Now she kind of makes it about them because she says, you know, I'd love to hear all about you.

But again, that's so weird, and it doesn't end out on question. Why don't you ask a question like, Hey, how long have you been doing your business? How long have you been in X, Y, and Z? How did you get started? I love your, you know, it could be even simple as like, I love your dress. Where'd you get it?

Right. That's, I just cannot believe that this is still a thing. Anyways, I think there are more effective uses of your time that once you friend request someone on Facebook, I, I I don't teach that. You go then send them a welcome message. I teach that you get into, speaking of organically, their inbox, which is still the end goal, is to be in messenger with them cuz that's where money is made in the messenger on Facebook.

There are other organic ways to do that. One. Number one, the number one way to do that is through stories. When you connect with someone and interact and engage with them in their stories, you know where it. To their inbox. Okay? So you want to do that in an organic way. You start to build a relationship and then you can connect on a different level, and then potentially a conversation can lead to an offer, to a sale, to a pro, a solution to solve a problem.

But you don't even know their problem when you don't even know about them. And at the end of the day, the only expectation you should. When generating new leads and growing your network is to build relationship, not to sell. Could they potentially be a customer and client in the future? Yes. But if that's the only reason why you're friending someone not cool.

Okay. Back to this like social, you know, social media replicating real life and it, it'd be like dating. Now maybe you're different than I am and I've also had. Poor decisions made in my dating relationships over the years, but most of the time speaking, you're not going to sleep with someone on the first date, okay?

You're going to get to know them first. You're gonna go on a date, you're gonna go have dinner. You're gonna ask each other questions. You're going to establish that before you get into the stack with them, okay? Or let's just, we can even take it pg. You're not gonna walk up to some. Again, I was 21. I lived in la I partied.

You know I have made poor decisions and I have made out with someone on the dance floor. Probably multiple people. Okay, thank, thank the Lord. I am redeemed and restored in Jesus' name. The blood of Jesus over my poor decisions has been plead. Anyways, most of the time you're not gonna walk up to some stranger and stick your tongue down their throat.

Right? That is essentially satisfying a short-term pleasure versus a long-term potential dating relationship, right? Like, are you gonna be like the one night stand wonder of social media, or are you going to have a lifelong legacy impacting business? That develops relationships and values. People truly values people, and again, you may not mean poor like bad, but it just comes off that way.

And when it comes off that way, people get blinded by that and it just like blocks you from any potential real relationship. You want the long lasting impact, legacy building business. That's why you're here. That's why we're friends. That's why we're sisters. That's why you're connected with me, because that's what I teach, that's what I talk about.

That's what I hammer home. And something as simple as friending people on Facebook, you could really be, um, affecting that in a, in a really bad way for your business. And I don't wanna see that. It's something so simple that we may not really think about, but there's actually strategy behind it. There are, and here's the strategy.

Let me just recap. It's replicating real life, what you do on social media. I'm curious, and you should ask yourself, would I do this in real life? Would I talk to people this way? Would I out of the blue, just send them a message that is all about. No you wouldn't. And there are other ways to connect with people to create those conversations.

Cuz we do want you in the messenger, we want you talking to people both like, because that's real life, but also algorithm wise it's better, right? Your content gets pushed out and they think, oh yeah, you are real friends cuz we're replicating real life. Does this make sense? I was just like blown away that I had talked about something similar before, but when I was on this call with my.

I was just like, oh my gosh. I would never, you wouldn't, you would never, I would never go into a party and just see someone I've never met before and never seen in my life and just be lying right to them and be like, Hey, let's be friends. So weird. I would like be freaked out and maybe you wouldn't, but I'm guessing you would be okay if you found this episode valuable.

I actually wanna know your biggest take. And I want you to do, here's what I want you to do next. I want you to take a screenshot of this episode and share it to your Instagram stories. Tag me the, Hey, hey, Emmy. Let me know what your biggest takeaway was. I've done, no, this whole month, right, has been really devoted to kind of the theme of Facebook.

And as much as I love Instagram is Instagram's my, my jam. Instagram's like where I hang out most. Facebook for me is still a viable platform to build my business. And to build my network, and I believe it is for most people, it's not for everyone. You know, at the end of the day you have to have your top big two before you branch out to other ones.

Some people's big twos are like Instagram and TikTok. Some are Instagram and LinkedIn, right? It has some clients at LinkedIn is really one of their top n networking growth strategy platforms for me is Instagram and Facebook. So hopefully you've enjoyed. This month, this series, right, that we've done, I guess you could call it on Facebook, but I wanna know your takeaway either from this episode or any of the other Facebook episodes.

Do you use Facebook? What did you think? Did you like this episode? Did I ruffle your feathers? Tell me, sister, tag me the, Hey, hey, Emmy, share on your stories. I'm so excited to continue to podcasting as a new mom. Hopefully. Like mental focus game is on par. I'm taking a lot of like smart coffee, so hopefully these episodes are just hitting home.

You're loving 'em because I love bringing them to you. Hopefully you have the best day ever and I'll see you on the next podcast episode.