How To Be an Efficient (Online) Networker

Recently I had an interview with journalist Christian Luescher for the Swiss newspaper Tagesanzeiger. There we spoke about what one could do to be a more efficient networker, both in the online and in the real world. He invited me to write a short article (in German). Here is an extract from the article, listing the things one might do to Be an Efficient Online Networker

E-mail

• Sending many small e-mails is better than sending a few long ones
• Responding quickly is good
• The more quickly people respond to you, the better they like you

Personal networks

• Bridge structural holes for business success
• Build embeddedness for personal happiness

Group networks

• Oscillating betweeness is an indicator of creativity
• The more balanced the contribution index, the better is team performance
• The more people start developing their own lingo, the more innovative they are
• The faster average response time, the bigger team happiness

Facebook networks

• Many friends is good
• Spending a lot of time on Facebook is bad

LinkedIn networks

• Having many friends is good
• Having too many friends is bad
• Having a lot of important friends (top university, lawyer, banker) is good

Twitter networks

• The more followers you have, and the less you follow, the more important you are
• The less you tweet and the more followers you have, the more important
• The more you are retweeted, the more important you are

Klout score

• Is meaningless, rewards information spreaders, not creators

Face-to-face networks

• The more we trust others, the more creative we will be
• The more we look others into the eyes, the more we trust them
• The less others speak, the more we trust them

If you would like to know why, you will find many scientific papers at our project Web site describing how I got to these - admittedly oversimplified - recommendations.