It would be safe to say that most of us value the connections we have in our personal networks. That’s why we make them in the first place, right? Some people have even attempted to put a monetary value on them. But take a minute to think about it. Do you appreciate the quality of your connections, or is it the quantity? Maybe you have thousands of connections and can send out a quick ping to the group and get many responses. That is one aspect of the power of social media! Or you could be focused in on a tiny niche, with less than a hundred contacts, but they are worth gold, each one of them.
Before we go any further, let me explain what I mean by “personal network.” For the sake of this post, let’s take it in the context of an online personal network. This may consist of your Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, or those whom you follow on Twitter.
Now imagine what you would do if that entire personal network that you took some serious time to build it up, just, disappeared? Sound like a scary scenario? It might be, depending on how you look at it. The value of a personal network can be hard to put a tag on.
I just did something that may surprise many of you. I just set my social online personal network back to zero (yes, 0), and did it on purpose!
Here are my reasons for doing what some would call a bad move:
- Experimental – It’s taken me a few years to build up the contacts I’ve made on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. I’m curious to see how long it will take me to build it back up, and I might do it slower this time.
- To make a point (to myself) – That I won’t really miss that much. The details that are very important to me will still rise to the top. Cream always rises to the top.
- Quality over quantity – Think organic. I have some wonderful contacts and people I talk with on a frequent basis on the social media wave. They will probably be some of the first people/brands I add again. But there is no rush. I can always do an old fashioned email or phone call in the mean time.
- Gives me a fresh perspective – Everyone has their own method of social network contact discovery. For some it’s annoyingly uploading their entire address book to every site and hitting invite to all 800 of their contacts. Others it’s more organic, just let it happen. I’ve done both. I was almost stopped from doing any more invites on LinkedIn once because I invited so many people at once. I learned a good lesson and will never do anything like that again.
By the numbers
For posterity:
- LinkedIn – removed 401 connections
- Facebook – removed 306 friends
- Twitter – unfollowed 486
This post isn’t about me!
Although I focused a large portion of the post on my experience, and why I did it, I’d like to focus it back on you, the reader. You may be thinking a few things right now, but if you can take away anything take this. The value of your personal network is what you can offer to it. I am confident that I will rebuild my personal network even stronger than before, meeting new contacts along the way. I know this, because I am focused on adding value to it through quality over quantity.
Question: What can you do, today, to add value to your personal network?
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About the Author: Mark is content with chinking away on the process of re-building his online personal network. He enjoys conversing on Twitter and growing and adding value to his network on LinkedIn. Mark likes how links come across in his Facebook news feed.
