internet

People with a lot of friends, so they tell us, are happier, better people who enjoy themselves, have more fun out of life and live longer.  But, however true that may be in life, it certainly doesn't apply to social networking.

The point is that there are friends and there are friends.  The sort of friends you want are the deep sort that you've had for years and who you know so well that you could trust - OK, maybe not with your life - but certainly with your money. 

Social networking encourages the making of friends but, for many people, you can substitute this word with the word 'acquaintances'.  That is, people who we really don't know other than to know their name and then click them with a mouse to add them to our list.  “I've got 350 friends,” we can then say.

It's easy on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to spend time just adding acquaintances and, don't get me wrong, that's great for making a list for marketing purposes, but these are not the sort of friends that you can really call friends. 

So, that said, how do you go about making the right sort of friends both in social networking and in life?

So, that said, how do you go about making the right sort of friends both in social networking and in life?  The magic ingredient, it seems, is how much you put into the relationship.  In a situation that accurately mirrors life, the more often and deeper you make contact, the deeper and stronger will be the friendship.  It really is as simple as that.

So, in order to get the most from your friends, rather than just collecting names in a list, you'd be better off having less friends but concentrating on communicating with them to build real friendships.

So how do you do that?  As far as social networking is concerned you need to make the effort to write to your friends on a regular basis.  Tell them what you are doing and - more importantly - how you feel about things.  Then try to elicit the same information from them.  Once there is a regular two-way communication then the bonds deepen for the benefit of all.

One way to do this, of course, is to write individually to them but you can supplement (note, I said supplement not substitute) this by the careful use of technologies like Twitter and similar sites to let people know what you are doing and, if you want, what you like or dislike.

If you think about it, it's exactly what happens in life.  The more interested you are in other people: the more interested they are in you.  The people who have the most friends are usually those people who are not simply lucky but when you analyse it, they are the people who put the most into relationships.

So make a point of starting today: find at least one friend and write them an email and make it a long one!

Tags: networking