I’ve been pretty busy lately. I have a lot of work on my plate in addition to the normal scope of my life’s insanity, so needless to say I haven’t been as immersed in my social networks as I usually am. Truth be told, I have so many it’s becoming hard to sustain. In order to truly offer any value to the social network in which you participate, you have to be actively – well, active. Some days I barely have time to collect my thoughts in my own head, much less get them all out in typed form on the various social networks that I belong to. I try to divy it up a bit. A little Twitter, a little Facebook, maybe check MySpace from my phone every 5 days or so and of course checking LinkedIn several times a day. Then there’s my private social spaces online, where I participate as often as I get the chance to.

One thing is for sure though – if you go silent, so does your network.

For example, because I haven’t had the time to immerse myself in social networking lately; the rapid decrease of my influence on said networks is immediately evident. It’s like tweeting into a forest and listening for the echo. Or something like that. Anyway, this phenomenon is familiar to me as a salesperson. I had more than 1 boss who subscribed to the “you’re only as good as your last placement/sale” theory. No matter how much money I had made, or how many relationships I had built – it was the next one that validated my existence. The perpetual dangling carrot.

The same theory applies to social networking. If you heavily immerse yourself in social networking, building relationships and participating in discussion with other professionals then you must be prepared to continue. Every day is best, although that is an unrealistic expectation in all cases. We have lives which sometimes means we have to unplug. However, out of sight is out of mind. With the nature of Twitter and Facebook’s real-time updates, it’s very likely that unless you’re active a lot – most of your friends aren’t looking at your updates. When was the last time you visited someone’s profile that you’re already following, just to see what they’ve been talking about? How do you remember all of your friends/connections if not by visual prompt?

For me, the answer is one by one. Every so often when I feel out of touch – I reach out to actual people in my network instead of broadcasting an update to everyone. And by everyone, that usually means the handful that see it before it scrolls off of the screen.

How do you cultivate your network & keep connections alive? I’d love to hear your strategies – share them with me!