Squidblog

You can break most online interactions into two groups: Catchers and Throwers.

Catching is what you do when you collect friends of friends on Facebook, when you follow Twitterers, when you subscribe to RSS feeds of blogs you like. Catching can be a great way to organize your favorite bits of the web.

Throwing is harder. Lots harder. It’s what you do when you post on your blog, and keep doing it a few times every week. It’s starting a petition on Care2.com and getting people to sign it. It’s what you do when you make lenses about the things, ideas and people that excite you.

Squidoo is a community full of throwers. Leaders, influentials, tastemakers, top dogs. But the temptation to throwers here and elsewhere, sometimes, is to just throw and throw and throw, indiscriminately, and hope that something sticks. Here’s the thing: that’s called spam.

The trick to both catching and throwing is to do it judiciously and respectfully. When you like someone’s blog and subscribe to it, drop the person a note and say thanks. When you disagree with a post, don’t bash the blogger, just… disagree. Similarly, when you write a blog post or a Squidoo lens and want people to read it, find networks on your topic, talk to people who want to hear from you, and make sure what you’re throwing is useful and relevant and polite.

Now, of course you should have a Twitter account, and of course you should talk about lenses there. Of course you should have a blog and review Squidoo pages on it. Of course you should strut your Squidstuff on Facebook. And, in fact, if you’re not doing those things, start now!

As Seth wrote today, “Publishing your ideas… in books, or on a blog, or in little twits on Twitter… and doing it with patience, over time, is the best way I can think of to lay a foundation for whatever it is you hope to do next.”

But if you do it dumbly, and en masse, and throw to people who haven’t decided to follow or friend or subscribe to you, you’re gonna lose a lot of fans old and new.

Throw a lot. Just respect your catchers.

And catchers, hey, no one’s twisting your arm. It’s up to you to follow only the best throwers out there.