Online Social Networking: Quantity vs. Quality
On April 4 in Building a List with Online Social Networking I discussed the role of online social networking in permission-based marketing.
When you add a friend at one of the social networking sites, you are adding that person to your list, and at the same time you’re adding yourself to his or her list. It’s reciprocal list building.
You’ll readily agree that a tiny list is not likely to get you far. Right?
You must build a large list. But how large? And do you focus on quantity or quality?
Whether you have 100 or 500 or 5,000 people on your friends list, you aren’t going to be able to have a regular intimate dialog with all of them. So why opt for smaller rather than larger?
In Stan Relihan’s interview with Ron Bates, the most connected networker on LinkedIn with around 40,000 direct connections, Ron answers the question quite succinctly. He says that “there is quality in quantity”.
In other words, the larger your list, the more people there will be who are just the ones you’re looking to meet. Some relationships will remain superficial while others will become strong friendships.
Ron also discusses the importance in business today of what he refers to as an “additive online presence”. Before somebody does business with you they’re likely to Google you to see what comes up. That’s your online presence. Each place you network, post an article or bookmark a site adds to that presence. This you may recall is a subject we touched on last month in Social Networking Sites: Your Web Presence and is frequently discussed at My Private Classroom for Marketers.
I encourage you to listen to Stan’s interview with Ron Bates and Stan’s other online social networking podcasts. You’ll find loads of gems.
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Tags: building a list, business today, direct connections, Google, intimate dialog, LinkedIn, list building, networker, online social networking, permission based marketing, Ron Bates, social networking sites, web presence
April 21st, 2008 at 9:38 am
Interesting post. I remember once Ron Bates telling me that LinkedIn is like a pyramid, and therefore being at the top of it is the best place to be.
It might be true, but not so true in my own case. Like most of us, I have a presence on LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook and the likes. In addition, invitations to join other networks keep pouring into my inbox.
So far, I have got very little from LinkdeIn (even less from Plaxo!), at least directly. I use Linkedin to check someone’s profile (it is like googling the name), and to get answers to my questions (my favorite); not much really. I would be really interested in hearing from others about their linkedin experience.
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:31 am
I received a dozen contacts from headhunters over the past year and a half through LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is part of my “marketing mix”.
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:49 am
I don’t have profiles on either site. I need to get cracking, great post BTW