The other day I received a Facebook friend request from someone I didn’t know. While I was surprised at the request, it wasn’t the first time. When I view their profile they had over 3,500+ ‘friends,’ zero of which I knew. While there are those that use Facebook to build quality connections and meet new people, there are those that ‘collect’ friends. Like baseball cards, there are some who boast about the number of friends that they have on Facebook.
Still, this is nothing new. Long before there was LinkedIn, there was business cards, and before that, a simple handshake. For as long as ‘networking’ has been linked with ‘opportunity’ and ‘possibility,’ it seems that the common sentiment is that the larger your network is, the more opportunities you will have. With social media though, ones’ ‘network’ is evolving into more than just ‘opportunities’ and ‘possibilities,’ but ‘relationships.’ Continue Reading…