I just ran across a quick interview with author and marketing expert Seth Godin over on Kipp Bodnar’s blog and the very last sentence stopped me in my tracks, and made me think.

Here it is:

“What I really don’t like online is this superficial networking…all the thousands of people who show up friend-ing everybody else. Why? Right. It doesn’t count for anything it’s just a waste of time.”

Wow.

Now I can see how having thousands of friends on Facebook can be a bit unwieldy and there has been a lot of chatter about all of the “noise” on twitter. And yes, I do have several friends on various platforms who I may never actually contact. AND, some people are on social media sites simply to rack up friend counts and followers.

I get that, and it could very well be a waste of their time.

But there is nothing superficial about the way I use the social web to network, and I’m sure that many of you can make that claim as well.

I’ve already shared that I landed a publishing contract thanks to Twitter and Bryan Person. I did a great podcast with Dick Carlson, just launched the inaugural Social Media Breakfast Raleigh with Kipp Bodnar and had the most amazing conversation with Maren Hogan a few days ago that resulted in a new chapter for my book.

I am calling Connie Bensen this Friday to brainstorm a few ideas and recently gave this Facebook friend a guest post on my blog that will hopefully help him land a job or at least get his great ideas read by some real decision makers in the newspaper industry. (My stats show that folks at newspapers from Ft. Wayne to London England have read his post)

But this was the best comment of all in the 1:18 interview:

“The networking that matters is helping people achieve their goals. Doing it reliably and repeatedly so that over time people have an interest in helping you achieve your goals if they have a stake in it”

Be sure to listen to it in its entirety.

Now tell me about some of your non-superficial networking and give an example or two of how it has helped you, or how you have helped others along the way.

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