Quantity vs Quality

Thomas Power in the video to which the title of this blog links, talks about quantity as input and quality as output. So he advocates building up thousands of people in your network, for example having thousands of followers on Twitter. From these, a small number of people emerge with whom you can do business and an even smaller number who become trusted partners.

The problem this approach brings is that your network then includes every one you have ever met or come into vague contact with (virtually or physically) which is great for broadcasting your general messages as widely as possible, but a clumsy tool for nuturing the relationships that have potential to become important. It also has the danger that you are swamped by input from all the connections. You need to be very disciplined or have very good tools not to be distracted by all the possibilities that your connections provide.

I propose the alternative approach of filtering before allowing people onto your networks. Or, at least, for your most important networking tools, pre-select for quality. For example, on LinkedIn, connect with those with whom you have some relationship so you can build trust with them.

Use blogs, Twitter and some social media sites, to comment, interact, post and come up with new connections. But keep one or more networks for the inner network you are nuturing (and who are nurturing you).