Credibility and Online Networking

by C. JeAnne Frey, CMT.
12 July 2009

I'll be very up front about this. I have an ax to grind. It involves business networking on the Internet.

I am very much in favor of using the Internet to promote a bodywork practice. Shoot, I had a website back when the majority of massage therapists wouldn't touch one with a ten foot pole. Back then, there were still a lot of people who equated everything on the Internet with the very thing most licensing laws go into effect to counteract. (Perhaps I should also be up front also about my Curmudgeon Voice. Yes, I do sound at times like the stereotypical crotchety old folks griping about young people nowadays. "Back in my day, we had to walk 10 miles to school uphill barefoot in the snow...both ways!" In my case, it's "back in my day, we didn't have voice transcription programs for our SOAP notes, we had to write them up by hand!") Odd as it sounds now, there truly was a time when a web site for a massage therapy practice meant several undesirable emails or late night phone calls every week. It was merely another cost of having an Internet presence.

Networking is a very beneficial thing. My own personal preference is for everything I do that involves anyone else on any level (can we say "that's everything") to be a win-win situation. It used to be we'd meet others at work, church, clubs, through friends, or while waiting for an elevator. (Okay, maybe I'm stretching things a wee bit there, but not much really. I know people who've done it.) I remember "Happy Networking Hours" in the 1980s where people weren't just at the bar for cheap after-work drinks, but also because some publicity genius in that establishment decided to use meeting other professionals as a hook. Honestly, whoever first came up with the idea was a genius! Patrons would come in in droves, boxes of business cards in hand, and spend money while chatting with others and trading business cards. They didn't even need to offer half-price specials to those of a particular gender. Pure genius!

Pull me out of my reminiscing to July, 2009 and the reality now is that many of us would be lost without email addresses, websites, mobile phones and texting. As for our networking, we don't need to go out anywhere. We can sit in the privacy of our own homes or offices and create an account to network not just with people in our own town, but with anyone with access to the Internet who is either able to read the language we write in or have it translated. How fabulous is that?

I do feel the need to point out the irony of sitting in an Internet café near a dozen or so other people, and no one in the room interacts with each other because they're all online checking status updates. But I digress.

It is unfortunately quite possible to gain too much of a love for technology and lose this thing called integrity. It's easy to get caught up in adding more, more, more contacts so we can be more visible on networking sites. Sadly, I've had more link requests at these sites that follow what is, to me and my perhaps antiquated values, unsuitable for projecting an accurate portrait of my work.

I don't need to tell you what networking sites are. I'm sure some people reading here know of several I've never heard of. Some target professionals, some are billed as social, but all of them have people making connections of all sorts all over the place.

Many of us are finding the balance between our social and professional presentations. Certainly I'm still rough around the edges in my presentation on these sites. I'm sure I err too much on the social side of things. That's my comfort zone, and since I've connected with far more people I know socially than professionally, it seems the natural voice to use. I've also had strictly professional profiles, and the results with some of those were rather alarming, at least to me. It all started with one connection. It could have been anyone, but the first person, the one I first felt suckered in by, still stands out the most.

There was a time, way back in the dinosaur ages of, what, 7 or 8 years ago maybe, when forums were The Big Thing. There was no MySpace or Facebook then. Discussion groups were all over the place. They're still part of many sites (like MassageResource.com...gratuitous plug) and are still the best way to find out the opinions and advice of others. Like many people, I love to be able to express my opinion, so if I have something I can contribute, I'm more than happy to experience the online text version of listening to the sound of my own voice. Sadly, this led to no small amount of disillusionment and a very helpful reflection of another thing that's very important to me, personal integrity.

Because forums are very much in my comfort zone, I answered one fateful question posted in a forum on a networking site. The person who posed the question private messaged me, I responded, and we had a bit of a conversation back and forth. When I was asked to list said querant as someone I knew, I was more than happy to, since by that time I thought I had a sense of who they were. Within a week, I was asked to write something for that person about how great their massage work was.

Excuse me?

Said individual lives in a town I've never visited, they've never visited me, and all I know about them is what they've told me and what they've written on their profile and in the forum. How, exactly, can I say "wow, that was the best massage I've ever had" when I not only haven't had a session from this person, but don't ever expect to? Can you say "questionable integrity?"

Not long after that, I saw that person had rave reviews from people all over the world. Obviously, everyone in their network had been asked to write a glowing review of their work and many had agreed to do so. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but when I see people from across the globe singing the praises of a bodyworker in Tinytown, USA, I find myself wondering if all of those people are truly in a position to offer an honest assessment of the work. Admittedly, I may have been influenced by the request of me to write such a thing, but even so, it looks a bit odd.

I also wonder, what kind of person wants people who have not experienced their work to write about it? It strikes me as dishonest, and if I'm listed as friends or associates with someone who posts things about them self that aren't true, that implies I might do the same. That's another reason why it's not the best idea to "friend" someone on a networking site that you don't know. (Granted, personal safety is a far more pressing issue. Nobody needs a stalker, cyber or otherwise.) Listing connections you don't actually have might not reflect badly on you, but then again it might.

It turned out this "find connections by participating in a forum" ploy is not at all uncommon. Eventually, I simply stopped reading forums at certain networking sites because I got tired of strangers asking me to list them as business connections. That's a loss, because there were some good questions put forth, and there were clearly a lot of knowledgeable people participating who are able to take part in a discussion without viewing those they converse with as there to somehow benefit them through false reputation building.

Perhaps this attitude I have about being as honest as possible is a character flaw in this age of online networking for business. Certainly it leaves me out of some circles...I've received some pretty hostile comments once in a while from people I declined to "friend" on a networking site after our interaction consisted of no more than discovering and acknowledging each others' existence.

Perhaps also I am Pollyanna, believing that there are still those out there who prefer quality over quantity. Some people might find a few, brief but heartfelt references rather than scores of professional (and potentially canned) sounding reviews of work more appealing.

I'm hardly the first or last to say this, but what we write online doesn't disappear. The way we present ourselves, any of us, not only bodyworkers, is there for perusal by everyone. If integrity is important to you, consider how much "win" is present in the proposed "win-win" of claiming to have experienced something you have not or claiming to know someone you do not.

C. JeAnne Frey, CMT has been a massage therapist since 1999. She has a private practice in Charlottesville, VA where she continues to refine her ability to serve. In addition to her fascination the human body, she is also a facilitator for several soul-based modalities, fledgling sculptor, and a social West Coast Swing dancer. She can be reached at jeanne@tyrmassage.com