You can begin to take your Twitter connections for granted. Please don’t. These are new friends that will become dear friends over time.

I love connecting with people on social media. I love meeting them face to face even more. But there will be some that I will not get a chance to meet in the near future. But those friendships are as every bit precious as those I make on a face to face basis. I must never take them for granted.

I know life can get busy and keeping track of your friends can be challenging. I want to help you do a better job of this by giving you a few ideas that will simplify your efforts.

Ideas on how to create and keep track of your online friends:

  1. Never be afraid to reach out to people. There are many great friendships just waiting to happen. The world is full of wonderful people. Don’t let a few bad apples spoil the day and the potential connections you can make.
  2. I always connect with people who engage others on a regular basis. On Twitter for example, I always look for the “@” sign when people are posting. This tells me that they are engaging others; and not simply broadcasting. This is a key one for me. You cannot develop a great friendship with a bot. Make sure you are building on a good foundation. Everything onward depends on this one cornerstone.
  3. Put your friends on lists or circles (Google+) so that you can focus on seeing their tweets, posts and comments easier. You can create lists on Twitter and on Facebook. On Google+, you create circles for your friends.
  4. Make it a point to connect with your friends on a regular basis. Maybe you gather together on a Twitter chat, a Google+ Hangout and do a video chat on Facebook. What  ever you do, make it a point to plan when you will get together. Even if it is just for a few moments, it will be refreshing and beneficial.
  5. Never forget your friends that are not online. Get together with them as well.
  6. Be encouraging to your friends. Be the cup of cool water in the dry hot desert of life. You will need that cup of water at some point yourself.

Now I know that this is not a complete list for creating and keeping friends. But I wanted to give you some pointers to help you to keep moving forward. I was inspired to write this post when Eric Andersen @eric_andersen shared a blog post by Alexandra Samuel on “Your social media friends are your real friends“. And this all started when Susan Borst @susanborst originally shared my post on “Moving your Twitter relationships forward“.

I like what my friend Chuck Blakeman @ChuckBakeman says…”Live well by doing good”. So never lose the awe of making those connections; and how those connections are made. Don’t forget your offline friends as well either. Have a great Monday. And remember this..”He who has friends, is friendly”.