Sunday was my birthday.

And as someone once said, “Never let a crisis go to waste” or something like that, I decided to do a social media experiment.

(No, my birthday was not a crisis.)

One of the ways I use Facebook is to wish folks a happy birthday.  It’s real easy as Facebook will alert you, so as long as you check daily.

I spend more time on Twitter and have stepped up my use of FourSquare, neither of which have automatic birthday reminders.

But on Friday a friend took me out to lunch for my birthday and when I checked in to the restaurant I mentioned I was there for a birthday lunch.  I didn’t mention whose birthday, but still 3 folks wished me a Happy Birthday.

Sunday however was a busy day on Facebook and Twitter.

When I checked into the Firefly Coffee shop and I used Four Square combined with a pic and linked it to my Twitter account, I mentioned that I was having a raspberry white mocha for my birthday.  The Birthday wishes started rolling in.  I replied back with a “Thanks for the Birthday Wishes” off and on all day on Twitter.

But the biggest response was from Facebook Friends.  I stopped counting after 100 birthday wishes but because Facebook makes it easy to do, I commented back to each and every one of them.

Why?  Why not just do a group “Thanks everyone” type of post?

Because Social Media is about building relationships in my book.

Even if it only takes 10 seconds for someone to send the message, I wanted to spend at least that amount of time, sometimes more to really personalize my response.

Are you using Social Media to build relationships?