At sometime in everyone’s online existence there will be the important message you send to someone that goes unanswered. What does it mean or not mean when someone does not respond to an important communication could reflect on what you think or not think about the person who did not respond. That negative thought could hurt the non-responder’s image!
Got to Respond
It happens..you have a conversation via a G+ Hangout, or a G+ Chat or even in person and that conversation continues with the person using an email or chat, Then all of the sudden you get no response…nothing…notta.
What are you to think? Most likely you will have several thousand thoughts..most of them negative..running through your head.
Is it something to be concerned about?? Most of the time it is.
The ‘No Response’ trend seems to be growing and ‘Why?’ is always the first question asked when a problem like this starts trending. Communicating or being social is getting more and more difficult to do in the online social spaces. The trend of people just giving up on responding to people has become a train wreak in the making for many people’s image.
This growing problem started when people felt they needed to gather up ten’s of thousands of people to their community for marketing purposes. Dealing with thousands of people who want to ask questions or get information has been a long standing issue for these people and not knowing how to communicate effectively to those in the community who reach out in an email has been the down fall for many.
Their image can turn sour for these people who do not respond to messages or start a conversation and then fall off the earth to never respond again. Here are some of the thoughts that go through the senders head when they do not get a response to their message.
Did I Do Something Wrong?
Did I piss them off? This is a good possibility. If you are like most people who are concerned with the image portrayed online you more than likely ran through every word of every sentence in every paragraph of every communication you have had to find what could have set the recipient of your message off to being upset which resulted in them not responding.
Did they see something in my Profile they don’t like? Then you reflect back again on everything you talked about and the tone of the conversation you had being negative or positive. You go through to see if there is something in their profile.. religion..policial affiliations or business competitors..anything to see if they see you as a bad person.
Even more questions will be asked which all lead to spending a lot of time searching for answers on what the person you were having a conversation with thinks about you.
Needless to say, the lack of s response to a message does waste a lot of the senders time.
Not Responding Backfire
In interviews I have had with people who seem to be very selective in who they communicate with I found many (68%) grade who they respond to on the potential of that person being a customer or making any money off of them. If the conversation was intended to develop a sale and then turns to being just being social, these people feel ignoring the person will get them to go away.
The worsening economy is pushing many people to focus on making money from each contact and they will quickly ignore anything and everything that is not something or someone who will immediately enhance their revenue horizons.
In a few cases (18%) where I have had conversations with people who are popular to so many others I find developing a popular image is a focus for them. Who they hangout with online or offline is a great importance to them and their image they are developing. In a few conversation with these image conscious people I find they take what they more than likely developed in the halls of High School and hope that ignoring someone will send the message to them to get lost or to go away.
The comments others make about someone else also influence these people’s thinking towards someone who sent an email to them. It is far too common for me to hear in group conversations negative comments people make about someone else not present in the group. Most of the time these negative remarks come as warnings on the person’s character being less desirable which influences someone who just received an email from that person.
What Goes Around Comes Around
Most of the time the thoughts of the sender towards the non-responder turn negative. In today’s fast paced social networking culture, the back lash from not responding can be very damaging to the recipient of their message.
The sender will quickly start to get the impression the recipient of their message is one of the many people who feel they are just too important to spend time responding to them . As time goes on and no response is still not received the feelings of the sender will start to become more public. The sender will eventually reach out to others who know the recipient taking any opportunity to rant about the recipient’s rudeness. This starts the train of negative publicity towards that person as being a person who is not concerned with REALLY being social.
Simple Solutions Are Plenty
Responses to messages and communications of all kinds are part of being social. If someone has a problem with someone eles or just does not have the time to communicate, there still needs to be some closure to the thread of conversation. A simple… I’m sorry..got to run on to another project..let’s do coffee sometime when I get more time… would be a positive let down to the sender that the conversation is over. Yet, the let down gives them positive hope that it will continue again someday.
If after the message of explanation on why more responses will not be made and more messages are being received from the sender, then some of the tactics used to ignore the person might be appropriate..but not until there is some explanation sent in a response.
Problem Starts With Having Too Large of a Community
There are many solutions to the time management problems people seem to state they have for not responding to so many emails. Receiving large volumes of emails is the price people pay for attracting too many people to their community. Accumulating ten’s of thousands of people in your community is a natural phenomena for people who generate good content, but the negative part is not responding to them if they send a message.
Not that I am as popular as many people I know, I do however average over 200 emails each day. I know people who get much more and that volume does become daunting to manage when it is everyday. However, even with the moderate volume of emails I get I make sure I take time throughout the day to read and respond to all forms of communications. But of course this is how I do it and I am well trained in Time Management so I know where and when to spend the time needed. I also know from experience how many people I can communicate with on a regular bases and keep my online and offline social community under control so I can spend time with the people I really care about.
Many of the social butterflies online are not adapt to knowing how to use time management and that results in them missing emails or having such a backlog it is impossible to catch up. I see comments people in my community post a report they just had to flush hundreds of emails they received because they do not have time to read them all. This post usually is the first post they make after attending a full week social event or conference where they went to learn how to use all the gadgets to make them more popular or gather more people to ignore.
Importance of a Response
It is important to understand that if you are going to be out in the social spaces you have to be social. Being social takes time. It also just as important to respond to messages, especially messages asking important questions or dealing with something of importance.
If you don’t have the time to respond let that be known to everyone in your community. If you don’t want to get the negative image that goes along with not responding to important message then it is important you find the time to respond. Or..if you are that popular..hire someone to manage your messages for you. Or..better yet..pull back the number of people you allow in your community to being just those who really matter.
Responding is good…communicating how you respond or if you don’t have the time to respond is the best response to messages you received but can’t respond to.
Enough said..let me know how I can help.
