Aron Schoenfeld

I got a LinkedIn request to connect the other day from someone I have never heard of. It said I was his classmate when I went for my MBA, but I am pretty sure I never met this person before. Further confirming my suspicion was that I got a few Twitter mentions from the same person asking for my email address and for me to add them on LinkedIn so we can connect. I responded that I only connect with people I have some professional relationship with already and that they can send me an email introduction. This got me thinking about how people use social media to network and how people connect with others on social media sites. What is the value of a connection or friend? How can we measure followers and members of a circle?

After thinking about this for some time, I realized that every social media site serves its own unique purpose and they are used in different ways. While some people view it as a popularity contest and accept requests from anyone, using the sites properly will lead to increased value for you and those connected to you. Below is a listing of the sites as I see them and some guidelines to using them effectively.

1. Facebook. This site is a true social networking site for friends to share content and pictures and keep up with each others’ lives. Friend requests should only be sent to actual friends or people you have met a few times. Facebook friends do not mean you are really friends but rather want to share content. If you don’t post any content of value, you will lose your followers. And if you get a friend request, you DO NOT have to accept it. Be selective as much of your personal information is shared on this site and there is nothing wrong with not friending someone or un-friending them if they add no value.

Tip: If you have someone you want to follow, like a celebrity, but you aren’t friends with them, subscribe to their feed instead of sending a friend request.

2. LinkedIn. This site is great for managing professional relationships and tracking those who you have done or continue to do business with. It allows you to see who is connected to whom and receive recommendations from people to boost your own profile. There are many people who use this site as a business “facebook.” And they connect to people that they want to meet, instead of connecting with people they actually are professionally connected with. This dilutes the value of your professional network and makes LinkedIn just another place for content sharing. Over the last 2-3 month, I think there is more of an emphasis on using LinkedIn for group management as opposed to just building your network. I think that LinkedIn is evolving and there will be some increased functionalities over the next year that will help make this site stronger and focused. But in the short term, build up your recommendations and try and keep your connections to real connections so that they may be leveraged the way initially intended.

Tip: If you are trying to connect with someone and the request does not meet any of the criteria that LinkedIn asks to confirm how you know the person, you should not be connecting with that person.

3. Google Plus. This is the most interesting social network on the internet now. It is growing rapidly and slowly gaining in popularity, despite the fact that most people aren’t quite sure how to use it. The integration into your Gmail page is great and a excellent way to take your email contacts and turn them into connections. I happen to think that “circles” are a great way to accept all friend requests and qualify them so you can manage the content that is being shared. To me it feels a bit more like a subscribe button. I think the biggest issue with Google Plus is that it lacks a lot of the creativity and functionality of the other sites; it will be interesting to see how it evolves.

Tip: Use your circles effectively. Try and classify people properly and make sure that you tag your posts to be visible only for the circles that are appropriate.

4. Twitter. Many may argue that this should not be included in a listing of social networks as Twitter is a bit different. However with the ability to follow people, I think people use it as a means to be recognized. Most people follow people with a large following, and re-tweet, message and #ff people to grow their own following on the site. Not only does it not work in most cases, but it also drains on the quality of your twitter feed. Once you learn how to tweet effectively, it is essential that you post content that is relevant, timely and helps create a conversation. Using twitter correctly and following those who are relevant to you can be one of the best ways to gather information and knowledge. So it is imperative that it be used in a way that fosters this environment and is not a contest of how many followers you have. Remember, sites like Klout measures how far your messages reach, not how often you post or whom you follow.

Tip: You do not have to follow people who follow you. Having a large number of followers is great but you will often find that those with the most followers follow the fewest people. Only follow those whose content is interesting to you since the feeds move very quickly and you want to keep it as relevant as possible. 

The common theme with all of these is that you should not accept requests from or follow those that have no relevance to you. Less is more when it comes to connections as those few connections add value to your use of social media. Seeing your 4^th cousin once removed post pictures from when they were three may be cute but is often irrelevant and takes the place of more meaningful content. Focus on letting these sites work the way they were intended, to allow you to manage your true real life connections on the internet.