Social media, to me, is not a place to make fans, but a place to make friends.

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I was in Paris last week. My buddy Matthew N Kepnes posted a few months ago saying he was moving to Paris and if anyone wanted to visit him.

“Sure, I’m in.”

A few weeks before I arrived, I pinged my buddy Alberto to let him know I was coming to Paris and if he wanted to swing by.

“Sure, I’m in.”

The three of us had a grand ol’ time exploring, eating (too many croissants), drinking, and talking about serious and unserious things alike.

(My post last week about the Mount Rushmore of comedies was because it was something Kepnes and I chatted about).

And this isn’t a one-off. I’ve gone to places like Sweden, Panama, Kosovo (now that’s a random one), Japan, Egypt, Philippines, New Zealand, and Singapore and gotten to hang out with people who I met on social media.

If we focus on quality and *actual* meaningfulness, social media can be pretty dope.

One of the best nuggets I’ve learned over the past few years is to NEVER give advice. Instead – talk about your experience in a similar situation (and how it played out).

If you think about it, any advice you give is likely derived from something you learned. So talk about that instead, and let the receiving person determine if your experience relates to them.

Pro-tip: Don’t waste time setting up ‘pre-populated tweets.’

I got an email from Groove last week about a new article they wrote. In the email they included a ‘handy pre-populated tweet.’

I checked 24 hours later. A total of 3 people had tweeted it out.

There is an opportunity cost to EVERYTHING. That email went out to over 100,000 people. In an email that included two links (one to the article, and one to the pre-populated tweet), they got a click rate of 0.003%.

What a waste.

Every time I come across anyone that has those “click to tweet” I always search on twitter if anyone has tweeted. The number of tweets has ALWAYS been dismally low.

The data is clear – don’t bother with pre-populated tweets.

I’d wager the #1 reason for my networking success is because I spend my time reading things that have nothing to do with business.

Thus when I meet another human, there are 100s of potential things we can bond over.

tl;dr – don’t be boring.

Developing craft 101.