Blog.

'Networking is important when it's real... Are there people out there who would go out of their way for you?'

Seth Godin explains why there needs to be more focus on building relationships and a shift away from the current scorecard mentality, often seen in the social media. Like in real life, we can only count on real relationships, not mere connections. It takes effort in real life to build proper connections and same can be said for the online space as well.

The metrics driven scorecard mentality only makes sense when you have real relationships and are able to leverage them. I only see higher number of followers relevant from 'impression/awareness' perspective. At the same time, lack of connections is not an excuse for low influence on the web. It has to balance and the key element is to be able to 'leverage' your connections to drive the business process.

Social networking has allowed us to build one too many connections possible and one has to make an effort to engage the community in a conversation.

Bilal Jaffery is an IBM Marketing Manager based in Canada. He specialises in Social Media, Web Marketing and Search Engine Optimization and is currently leading IBM Lotus Social Media Strategy.

This article was culled with permission from Bilal Jaffery's blog.