I have always been about quality. I know a lot of people, but value my few close friends. When it comes to clothes, I would rather have one quality, custom outfit than a dozen that were just ok. And when it comes to social media, I want to build a quality network of people rather than a massive list of names.

The first step in building a community is to develop relationships with people who have similar interests to yours and then engage in conversations, offering something of value and interest to them.

My goal is to build my networks strategically. I don’t add followers, friends or connections just because I can. I add quality people that have some personal or professional connection to me. To many, my networks may appear to be rather small, but they are enormous in their value to me.

In addition to my blog and email list subscribers, I am building the following social communities:

LinkedIn

I have 293 connections in my network on LinkedIn made up of people I have met in a professional setting, including previous employers, clients and prospects and those I’ve met at both live and online events. I am very comfortable inviting the people I’ve met to connect with me on LinkedIn. I know I have value to offer and want to remain in touch, even with prospects that never become clients. I always include a personal message to them and hope that they value connecting with me as well.

If someone invites me to connect that I have never met, I review their profile, looking at their picture (absolute must have), basic info and profile summary for common interests or business synergies. I view all people as potential business partners, future clients or someone who can open the door to an opportunity that is important to my business.

Facebook

I have 174 Facebook friends made up of life long friends and golf buddies, business contacts and social media contacts. Facebook is a wonderful place to meet people and interact with them. I love getting invitations from people from all over the world to become a friend. The stream of activity on your wall can help you learn a lot about someone. You can be more casual while staying professional in your conversation. I connect with all types of people on Facebook, including friends, colleagues and folks I meet networking because Facebook enables me to build Friend Lists, private groupings of friends based on my personal preferences, so I can organize my conversations and privacy settings.

Facebook Business Page

Every business should have a Facebook Business Page where you can make connections in a business casual atmosphere. Facebook provides many capabilities to enhance your Business Page to make it more interactive and interesting. Provide a steady stream useful and relevant information and those who are interested will become fans. Although some people send out requests for fans, I prefer to let the list build organically. I am thrilled when I see someone new become a fan. I currently have 66 fans and I am thankful to you all!

Twitter

With 914 followers and 742 friends (those I follow), Twitter is like going to an event and talking with everyone around you. The open conversation is very casual, but a lot of useful information can be found. My criteria is simple: I follow interesting people – not robots, spammers, automated accounts or adult content. A real picture of you will more likely get me to check your profile to see if there is a connection. Use a custom background image on your Twitter page to add important information about you and your value. If I don’t know who you are or what you have to offer, I probably won’t follow.

Bottom line is I’m very open to connecting, friending and following interesting people. I look forward to connecting with you.

What is your criteria for building your social media network? Share your strategy with us.

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Seek Quality not Quantity in Your Social Networks is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Is it Worth It?

I have to say that using Twitter was not high on my list for a long while, but I finally dove in to see what this social media tool was all about. But since joining the service and selecting a few folks I wanted to follow (right now I’m following only about 20 people who’s blogs I read regularly), I find I’m really seeing a lot of value in this social network from the business perspective.

For those reading who have not heard of Twitter:

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? (from the Twitter FAQ).

In 140 characters or less, you can send thoughts, observations, ideas, questions and other topics around you to your “followers”. These posts are called “tweets”.

The service is free. If you don’t have text messaging in your mobile phone plan, you could spend a bit of coin following those you want to keep tabs on. You can also follow using a web browser and Google Talk. Better yet, you can get a Google Gadget for your iGoogle page as well.

As you can see to the left, I have also inserted one of the Twitter badges to display the tweets of those that I am following, including my own. So every once in a while, you will spot my face among the notables tweeting regularly. But rather than just post my tweets here, I though visitors would enjoy to see what others are doing as well.

I have also installed the Twitter Updater WordPress plugin so that all new posts automatically get broadcasted to my followers.

Mike Sansone (who I’m following and vice versa), wrote an interesting post on Twitter on the day I signed up and started poking around (was that fate?). Check out his post on why he uses Twitter. 

What have I found interesting and valuable?

• Most of those you follow, follow you back – this makes you feel welcome into the community. These folks don’t know me and I certainly didn’t expect people to follow me right away as they don’t know me at all. So if you think you can lurk for a while, you can’t. Those of you who did follow back, I hope my life and daily tweets are as interesting to you as yours are to me.
• I get constant updates from people on what’s happening in social media. I can quickly scan the information and decide what is important and what is not. There are many things I’ve gleened over the past week that I would not have heard about had I not been following the buzz. And I just implemented a Yahoo Pipes feed as Mike suggested to keep those tweets that contain a URL to something I may want to find again later.
• It keeps me connected at all times. Whether I’m out at an event, in the car, or at my desk, I can keep informed and catch a few morsels of what others are doing.

On the down side, I don’t know how folks who follow hundreds, or in some cases thousands of people, can really absorb all of the information they get. I would assume they tune into certain folks and tune out others. Only following a handful of people to get started, I find myself already doing that. 

But the most valuable aspect of Twitter for me is that I’m getting to know many people who I would never have come in contact with personally (and hopefully they are getting know me as well). This media brings the world closer and connects people from everywhere with a common interest. To me, it’s almost not what you say, but the fact you are saying it to me, regardless of where I am.

So is it worth it? I would say absolutely. 

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

My First Week’s Experiences on Twitter is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.