I think I have The Plague. Or something that feels like it. 

But I can’t sleep. And I had to tell you about the latest craziness. 

Twice today, I’ve gotten the Social Threat.

Oh, this hasn’t happened to you yet?

It’s been happening to me a lot since I somehow made it on the top 50 of the Facebook Elite User list.

(My thoughts about all these lists? Story for another day.)

 Here’s how this scam works.

The Laughable Add Me Or Else! Scam

1- A person who assumes they’re doing you a favor by offering, sends you a friend request.

2- If you don’t friend them back in 0.314 seconds, they send you a “friendly” reminder.

3- Then, if you don’t still don’t friend them immediately, they “threaten” you.

“I’m not going to read your articles / buy your CD if you don’t friend me back.” or “You know you’re going to drop on the Facebook Elite list if you don’t keep your friend list active, and with my powerful network of 18 people, you need me!”

Or, “I’m going to tell such-and-such guru who I’m best friends with that you’re not a good person”, or my favorite, ”I’m going to ruin your reputation if you don’t add me!”

Now, what have we learned about social media, class?

That the word social is the critical, pivoting point, yes?

What’s social about threatening someone into responding to you?

What’s worse – the two times this happened this morning on Facebook were by two people I  had intended to add during my regular weekly mass update.

And what they said to me is what caused me to not just delete but BLOCK them. They made a threat to me that is the equivalent of slapping someone holding a bat when you’re otherwise unarmed.

Here’s the more obvious logic flaw to this tactic: Only a Desperate Loser Would Threaten Someone Into a Connection, and Anyone Who’d Cave is Worthless to Your Network Anyway.

Tell your friends.

That’s 90% of the key to social media. Everyone thinks it’s harder than that.

No, these are just new tools to do an old thing. And yeah, you need a pal like  Michelle, Liz, Rodney, Mr. Joyner, Sherman, Trish, or Laura to hold your hand through the details, but once you know the guiding principles, you’re set. If you don’t get what creates popularity, get a consultant who is actually popular, not just on a list that says they are, to show you.

Or just remember this free tip:

If you’re hanging around with the in-crowd, people think you’re part of the in-crowd.

So how do you get into the in-crowd? Get next to a person who is part of the in-crowd.

And remember that just being a part of that in-crowd person’s network isn’t enough. It’s finding someone willing to formally introduce good people to their contacts, instead of hoarding them like stolen treasure.

Now, when you meet a person like this online, and you want them to do for you, this is why it’s important to know about them, to research them, and not to add people willy nilly from some list you find and try to bully them into adding you.

You have to know who you’re talking to, what they might like or be interested in. I don’t need people to add me to their network of 18 friends on Facebook. Chances are that if I need to know them, or I know someone who does. You don’t bait a fish with a rotten old shoe.

And even if you do find something to ethically bribe someone with, you have to understand that still might not get you in.

This in-crowd is in BECAUSE it’s selective. If I know someone who is a marketing genius millionaire, and he’s always helping me out with stuff, I’m not going to introduce him to the guy I know who has a reputation for having never paid a single affiliate. I will only link him with the best people, no matter what it costs me personally.

So you want to put your best foot forward. Because when I’m displeased?

I have a big mouth and  a bigger audience – on demand. I can get coverage on the top online sites in 24 hours if I want, and no one will know it was me if I don’t want them to.

If I want 100,000 or 1 million people to know you suck – or to change their mind about a previous instance where you sucked, I can. I have those kinds of connections, and even without them, I have that kind of influence – that’s why you want someone like me in your network.

It sounds vain and self-centered. Because it is. I’ve earned the right to be arrogant about this.

But it’s also true (and relevant to knowing what the person threatened me with, shortly).

Threatening people doesn’t work. Because even if you were a legitimate threat, they’d rather lose their career and have to start over than lose their connections, and not be able to start over at all.

Which is why when someone says to me, “I’m going to tell my 100 subscribers that you’re a mean person and all those hundreds of stories about how nice you’ve been aren’t true.” I have to laugh, and I only have a powerful voice. Someone who has actual power would not laugh at all. They’d just crush you with their bat, just in case, like you were a roach. And keep stepping.

If you know people doing this foolishness under some phony expert’s advice, please tell them to stop, especially if they’re doing it to you.

Because I don’t know about you? But I don’t owe anyone anything.

But

1. I don’t actually hate it.
2. It’s totally summer.

It just annoys the crap out of me sometimes. I’m really trying to be on its team, and gave serious consideration to switching back to IE from Firefox. But when it does things like double post my WordPress entries? Not so much endearing.

No. Not at all. And I hate when I can’t make a new tab, when selecting new tabs. Because no, I don’t want the content to load in this window. That’s why I clicked what? New. Tab.

Here‘s what happens if you earn yourself a bad name. I wasn’t there for the original controversy, so I can’t comment on it, but if you’re a Warrior, you can read about it in the Warrior forum, just do a search on Joe Kumar.