How to Make Your Friends List Grow
Exploding in popularity, social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have greatly eased the process of connecting with old friends, classmates and acquaintances. Perhaps the most important element of these sites is the ability to compile and update lists of potential friends. Expanding the circle is not difficult once you figure how to take advantage of these sites' features.
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Things You'll Need
- Computer
- Email address
- Internet access
- Profile
- Social networking website
Instructions
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Promote Your Profile
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Mutual friends are a great way to lengthen your own list. Using the site's built-in content and photo uploading functions, create a profile that spells out basic details about yourself. Let your personality shine through your choices of books and music, personal interests and hobbies. Take full advantage of opportunities to customize content and graphics. (See Reference 1)
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Reach out to offline friends, which is the fastest way to build lists of them. Use the search tools to find your friends, then click on a name, followed by the "Add As Friend" button. Once confirmed as that person's friend, you can share mutual interests, exchange messages and write postings on each other's Facebook wall. (See Reference 4)
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Take some creative avenues to promote your profile. Start a blog devoted to a particular interest, or go to other existing social media sites for new friends. Many organizations such as high schools maintain pages of their own. Facebook, for example, has a function that lists old classmates--simply by clicking your high school and class year. (See Reference 3)
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Find others who share your interests using the search functions on the sites. Most networking websites also contain discussion boards, where it is easy to meet new people--or friends whom you already know. That could add more of them to your list. (See Reference 3)
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Don't merely envision your site as a promotional vehicle, even if you primarily use it for business purposes. Never forget to be social, which is the whole reason these sites exist. Nothing puts people off more quickly than insincerity, so make a genuine effort to be social. (See Reference 1)
Share Your Information
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Find additional friends by having Facebook search your email and instant messenger functions to show who is a member. Then you can ask for each friend to confirm you. (See Reference 3)
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Once your friendship list is decent-sized, reach out through groups and organizations for additional prospects. This could range from an old church youth group to a local book club. Click on the search function of your site to determine if your organization has its own page. Then you can find more people to approach as friends. (See Reference 3)
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Make the "mutual friends" approach work in your favor. Scan your lists of presently confirmed friends, because they may know some of the same people. Clicking on a person's photo will lead you to his profile, where you can look for people you know on his friends list. (See Reference 3)
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Give your new friends something special that they may not find elsewhere. Upload childhood photos, scanned articles from the school newspaper or videos from old class projects. The idea is to draw in people from other social networking sites that might not run across them otherwise. (See Reference 2)
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Avoid taking the lazy way out once your page is up and running. Don't just link to current news stories, and never flood your new-found friends with spam or forwarded messages with no personal comment. Link to items that reveal some aspect of yourself, your hobbies or key events in your life. (See Reference 2)
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Tips & Warnings
Remember the old rule of "less is more" when compiling your profile, or posting updates about your activities. Shorter chunks makes your page more appealing, and will make it more likely that other people will befriend you.
Never get caught up in befriending people as a numbers game. It's better to have a few people who truly value your friendship rather than a large number that you will rarely hear from again.
Show common sense when befriending people you may not know well. Access to your Facebook site will provide a lot of information about your life, so tread carefully in deciding who will see it.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit fun friendship image by visi.stock from Fotolia.com friends image by Dmitri MIkitenko from Fotolia.com
