Networking is what many people tell you to do to help your career and find a new job. Exactly what “networking” means to different people though is another question…

Also, giving versus taking is often a big issue with networking. Specifically, if you’re doing all taking and no giving, it tends not to result in positive results.

Twitter is a popular method of networking that people commonly use these days. Or at least it give people the impression that they’re networking. I get Twitter confirmations to let me know that someone is following me and when I check the person’s profile, I see that they have something like 5,000 followers and they are also in turn following 5,000 people.

So do you think that this person actually has 5,000 active followers who follow their tweets – and that they in return actively follow 5,000 people – or that it’s more a case where people simply follow each other, pad their results and don’t really accomplish much?

In other words, is it simply a quid pro quo of “I’ll follow you if you follow me” or is it something more than that?

People can certainly “”meet” others through Twitter but it’s questionable how many if not most people actually use it positively. I’ve had plenty of cases where someone follows me, I don’t bother following them, and two days later they’re no longer following me.

It does bring up a bigger thought related to networking though. When you’re networking, people expect to get something in return and when you don’t give it to them, they’re likely to avoid you or stop dealing with you.

People decide to follow me on Twitter and when I don’t bother following them back, they decide to unfriend me and delete me. In most cases, I couldn’t care less because I tend not to follow people who don’t at least offer something serious, useful, or related to my topic.

I’ve seen similar actions on Facebook and LinkedIn, too. Cases where I get a request from a person I haven’t seen or heard from in years but get no actual note or email. So they want to be a friend or link up with me…but don’t bother sending any email or note regarding what they are up to or anything like that.

When it comes to real, live, actual networking though, pay attention to what you offer and if you come across as simply someone who is taking and not giving.

People who do this consistently tend to have trouble successfully networking since the person on the other side of the table realizes that the only person benefiting is you.