photo credit: cambodia4kidsorg

It seems like several of the time management and professional blogs I read have recently talked about limiting how many online social networking sites you get involved with.  Although I haven’t personally experienced this phenomenon, I guess some people are finding that after checking in with MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, a couple of niche communities on Ning, and Twitter there isn’t much time left in the day to do anything else.  So the advice I’ve seen is to reign in and just pick one or two communities that you really want to become deeply involved with.  Let the rest slide.

For online social networking, this makes a lot of sense to me.  But networking in the real world strikes me a little different.  For over two years I’ve spent most of my networking energy with a single group.  It has about 30 people in it.  We meet for lunch every week.  I’ve gotten to know them pretty well.  They’ve passed me some new business and vice versa.  Unlike a social network that can have tens of thousands of active users at a given time, I really only have connections with 30 people.

Those 30 people already know each other, so I’m only bringing to the table my previous customers, friends, and family.  But look at what happens when I get involved in a second networking group.  Now there’s a room full of people who don’t know the 29 people that I’ve spent the last two years getting to know so well.  The people in this new group don’t know my friend Allen, who offers exceptional IT support.  I’m bringing value to both of my groups by introducing Allen to the people in the new group who need IT services.

If I was in a single group that had 60 members, everyone would already know Allen.  Not much for me to do in the way of introductions.  If I’m in two groups with 30 members, then I am the connection point.  Business networking is based on the idea that if I help you find new customers, then you’ll help me find new customers.  That means the more people I know that you don’t, the more likely I will be able to introduce you to a new customer, and the more likely you will be to return the favor.

So does this mean it’s even better to be in 4 groups with 15 members each?  Or 6 groups with 10 members each?  Depending on the time constraints, I would say yes.  There’s a certainly a point at which your schedule does not allow you to keep committing to participate in groups (just like with online networks).

The key difference here is that with an online social networking site, you’re never going to meet all the people in the network.  There’s always more strangers in the network for you to meet.  So focusing your time and energy on doing just one network really well makes a lot of sense. 

In the real world, networking groups are much smaller.  Everyone gets to know each other pretty well.  Two other people in the room can connect themselves without an introduction from you.  The only way you can bring value to the group is to have other networks of people that you bring into the room with you.

There are certainly people who have spent more time than me on both online and offline networking, but that’s my experience.

filed under: Finding Work, Running a Business