Building a Quality Network Takes Time

Ever since social networking moved into the mainstream, you constantly see people trying to obtain the greatest amount of contacts in the shortest period of time. The two tools I see this most prevalent in are Twitter and Linkedin. I even did it myself with Linkedin for a while by displaying my total number of connections before I realized I wasn't getting the point. We live in an impatient society where we want to acquire everything in our lives, including our professional network, as quickly as possible. Whatever happened to quality and value anyway? My point to this entry is to beware of falling prey to the twitterers and marketers who teach classes and write articles on how to expand your network and gain "x" number of followers in 2 months. To network successfully in your niche could take years and believe me it's well worth the wait and the hard work. At the end of the day I would rather have 5 followers or connections in my business social network that I've taken the time to meet and built a relationship with than have 1000 connections that I've never met. Plus, if you focus on providing quality in whatever your work may be, people will flock to you over time.