The circumference of the earth is approximately 25,000 miles and the world population is almost 7 billion people. With numbers like this, why is it that so many people have trouble building a network.Maybe it is because not everyone is on a social network site like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace. Combined these sites account for approximately 350 million members, approximately 30% of the people on the Internet but less than 5% of the total population.
Okay, some of you may think these numbers are big. However, they are nothing compared to the number of people who own cell phones. That number is over 4 billion or almost 60% of the world’s population. Therefore, you may be a member of some or all of these social network sites and most likely own a cell phone. Yet, the number of people in your network is nothing compared to what it could be. The numbers are there.
Yet, the number of people in our network is not what is important. The quality is what matters. At least that is what we tell ourselves.
This limitation is not the big problem. The real limitation is that each of us has more than one network. We have a network for job search, business, school, friends, family, neighbors, restaurants, retailers, church, community, etc., and we treat each network as mutually exclusive.
One way to increase your network immediately and maintain the quality is to merge these networks into one. In fact, I believe they already are. Look at the contact list in your cell phone. Everyone in your cell phone is important to you. Don't limit the role they play in your life. Think of your network as one fully integrated network.