Seth Godin - Two types of networking

[barryhynd]

I've linked to a video of Seth Godin which in 1 minute and 18 seconds managed to sum up really what networking is all about both online and offline.

The amount of time I hear people elling me how many facebook fans they have or how many followers they have on twitter is amazing and I guess what Seth says I really believe. It's not about the numbers and more about the quality of the people you connect with.

YouTube - Seth Godin on social networking and how to do it right

Would love to hear others views

[stuarty]

The comments speak for themselves and he doesn't actually tell us how to "do it right".

[abs]

I agree Barry. Although I'm still trying to get my head around Twitter, Linkedin etc. (I have just joined to see what they're all about), I feel that too many people are just trying to collect "contacts" just to get numbers but they are not helping each other. Ecademy is a prime example of people making contact with absolutely nothing in common just to get numbers and half of them frighten me off!

Theresia

[Adventurelife]

I am all for anybody who wears dafter specs than me

[PennyPR]

I dunno why people think that human nature changes when they go online. Online just makes it a lot easier to keep up with interesting people and make connections with others while you exchange ideas.
I believe the keeping-up is the really useful element if you're keeping up with people you really are interested in and connected with.
I have found people greeting me like old friends after years of posts on First Tuesday when they finally met me (ah, I was younger and slimmer then...!) and it's the on/offline cross-over that interests me.
Seriously good business is always down to who you know and how you deal with them, on and offline imho.
Will have a look at Seth's videos - the guy's a genius.

[KMiDigital]

The old adage “if you build it they will come” seems to be prevalent on social networking sites at the moment. Let’s be honest either you join a group to contribute and help people by giving advice etc or you join a group to get more work. I think if it’s for the latter then your reasons are way off the mark.

Join or start a group to make a difference to the people in that group not to gain anything and again I am a firm believer in ‘you only get out what you put in’.

[Mike Rogers]

I agree with most comments here. I joined networking sites to find out what was going on in 'the community', what was of interest to people and to build a reputation for giving good comments/advice. I think that people buy from people they trust, especially in my service area of hypnotherapy, etc., not from 'spam merchants'.
I also think that going for numbers of followers is little more than an ego trip. I also acknowledge that there are lots of weird people out there trying to impose their even weirder tastes on us.

Mike Rogers
Step2Change Hypnotherapy, NLP & Achievement Coaching