Getting Solicited by Friends: Poll

katanne9 · April 2010

As I was a Communications major back in the day, many of my friends are in the PR/Events/Press field. I get so many mass emails asking me to support X,Y and Z. Become a Facebook fan of ____ page. Join _____ Facebook group. Follow ____ on twitter. Emails to forward to friends. Etc, etc. etc.

EDIT: This is for purely work-related causes. Personal causes or volunteering positions are exempt.

noelle24 · April 2010

I said maybe. If it's truly something you think your friends would find interesting or useful, then sure, why not? In general though, I think it's best to keep work and private life separate.

StephB1185 · April 2010

Exactly what Noelle said -- only if you think they'd be VERY interested.

katanne9 · April 2010

Yes, I am torn. This last week I have gotten several solicitations for 2 of my friends who work for hospitals.

I can only deny supporting breast cancer research and funding for premature babies so many times before I start feeling wretched. And it's not like I don't donate or anything. I just want to choose where I donate to and when I want to. Not to avoid feeling guilty.

PaigeMcC · April 2010

Exactly what PPs said. I'm in PR and I do send along some of my stuff to friends (mostly other PR people) who would enjoy it or be interested in it. Only to targeted audiences.

I do not send mass e-mails/FB invites/etc to people saying "Join ________" or anything like that. I hate when people do it to me, and it's really not helping you much. I'd rather have 10 active users then 50 inactive users.

PaigeMcC · April 2010

Don't feel bad, Kat. These people should know if they're sending it out they're not getting back 100% of the people they send to. As I like to say when someone asks "WHy didn't you join that FB group I sent you? Why don't you follow them on Twitter?" I respond : "I support the causes I feel I need to in my own way. I don't feel I need to be in the ______ Facebook group just to show my support."

And they should accept that answer. If not then tell em to eff off:)

loopy82 · April 2010

I said maybe. If it is once in a great while they send something out fine. But if they are sending things out about their job all the time it would get really old.

This is not completely related, but related to facebook. There is a fb friend who daily would send me multiple requests to join a cause that she recently joined. They were all just irritating and what I deemed to be dumb causes.

**Mutley** · April 2010

I am also a maybe.

I am okay with the occassional solicitation. However, once it becomes a weekly thing, I block their feeds on facebook. There is a fine line. Don't cross it and I won't get irritable.

I tend to let Causes and such sit in my inbox. I just don't respond. If you do not respond, it cannot be resent. I am also guilty of doing this with friend requests. I do not ignore people. I just never accept the request.

zaneopal · April 2010

I agree with the maybe crowd.

Since I'm a college kid, money is obviously tight for me. And yet my roommates and other friends are constantly sending me e-mails/FB invites/etc for various causes. Our university just had their Relay for Life a week ago, and I'm glad it's over because I was going to scream if I got one more "donate to our team!" e-mail.

One of my roommates works for a non-profit, and I swear it seems like every few days she's raising money for one cause or another...I've blocked her in my news feed because it just gets really annoying to see some message or another about how if everyone donates just one dollar, a city can have light for a year or something.

I care. I do. However I have to be picky about how I spend my money, most of which goes to rent and utilities. And I donate blood, because that's free.

oceana919 · April 2010

I don't have a problem with friends soliciting me, so long as a) it's an occasional thing, b) it directly pertains to my interests, and c) they're not a total arse if I'm not interested.

katanne9 · April 2010

I think it would annoy me less if they weren't sending emails to every contacts in their address book. They haven't purposefully sent ME information because I may be interested. They are just sending it to every person they know.

**Mutley** · April 2010

Oh, or when they send a mass email but do not BCC. I

that.

musikbx · April 2010

I am a musician, so I am constantly being bombarded with "come to my show on this date" from people on my friends list. These people also send multiple reminders to my inbox, as the date for the show appropaches. To be honest, I don't even respond to event requests anymore because of this. Same with my inbox, unless I see that the first sentence is directly addressing me, I ignore it. I also refuse join those groups along the lines of "if you join this group, I will send $X to such and such a cause" or "I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who think X is important"

Although, I will contribute if I see a friend or colleague is trying do so something for a genuine cause (ie. my colleague who ran 30 miles for cancer research, because her father passed away from a brain tumor)

@Paige - People have directly asked you why you didn't join a their group/cause? Seriously?! Just the idea of that irks the hell out of me

TurtlesAllTheWayDown · April 2010

It depends. I have a friend who works in PR and invites me to launch parties, which is cool. Hitting me up for money is annoying.

I also have a problem with using work for personal fundraising. My wedding coordinator sent out an email and is using some of her work contacts to raise money for her daughter's extra curricular activity. It seems unprofessional. (But she's cheap.)

chickadeedeedee · April 2010

I always hated it when my old roommate/current best friend was the president of the College Democrats, and recruited me to make phone calls to our congressman with her about various causes I knew next to nothing about. That was always weird, because I would get put on 500 mailing lists, and she'd get a pat on the back from the organization advisor.

Getting Solicited by Friends: Poll

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