I have to admit that I am completely baffled by the people who are obsessed with obtaining followers on Twitter, actively seeking connections on LinkedIn, or somehow dismayed that they have been “de-friended” on Facebook. Why do you care?
The answer, I suppose, depends on how you use social networking tools. As a career tool, LinkedIn works best when it is a reflection of your real-life network. Ditto for Twitter. I reserve my LinkedIn connections for people I know well enough to recommend with confidence.
I actively nurture my network. I start by following what is happening with my LinkedIn connections every day. Because my LinkedIn network reflects my real-life network, the daily updates are a real-time stream of rich information about what my network contacts are doing and who they are meeting. This activity serves as a spring-board to reach out and connect; to freshen a network connection or offer my assistance.
If I connected with everyone on LinkedIn with whom I had merely exchanged a business card, my network updates from LinkedIn would become noisy to the point of being useless. I choose, instead, to stay engaged with my network and limit my connections to those that I can keep up with.
I embrace a similar philosophy when deciding who to follow on Twitter, although Twitter offers the seductive temptation to follow far more people and information sources than I could possibly keep up with. I am still working on that one.
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