I disagree with Lions: Networking is quality

www.laurentbrouat.com

Do you still send Linkedin (or viadeo) invitations without personal message?

So you get it wrong!

Networking and social networking is all about quality and not quantity.

In their brilliant article, Networking Reconsidered (hbr), the authors go even further and explain that Networking is about genuine relationships where you exchange issues and real knowledge. And only time and trust will ensure this kind of relationship.

By building long term relationships and getting the trust of your contacts you will be able to develop collaborative work.

I know that I don’t share the philosophy of the LIONs (LInkedin Open Networkers) on linkedin but I don’t care.

There are 2 opposite networking strategies on the net:

1) You send connection requests without personal message to all the persons you are interested in and try to grow your network as fast as possible. You hand over your business card to as many people as you can during networking events and conferences and try to convert them into contacts. You ask people you don’t know some kind of help (as once Seth Godin once mentionned…he receives everyday emails from people asking for something).

The end result is a long trail of connections without a real commitment and real exchange. It is a mass connection competition.

And I don’t think it does work actually. I know some people who started as Lions and got back to the old status.

You don’t build genuine relationships that will give you both knowledge and trusted leads.

You can’t be recommended in that case. You barely met a small number of them. You accumulat