Quality or Quantity? Finding the Right Number of HR Contacts on LinkedIn

A couple of months ago, I profiled what appeared to be a LinkedIn recruiting spam campaign by Wachovia Bank.  As a part of that post, we talked a little bit about the "promiscuous" LinkedIn user, a person looking to get as many contacts as possible, to expand the power of their network, regardless of whether they knew you or not.

How many contacts are the right number to have in a social networking tool like LinkedIn or Facebook?  In the comments of that post, recruiting source Simon Meth from SittingXLegged correctly points out that the more contacts you have, the better your reach to find candidates in recruiting.  Hard to argue with that logic.

Other professionals who have dived into the social networking area, via LinkedIn and Facebook, appear to be in danger of becoming overwhelmed and disconnected from the tools, especially in the face of "requests" to introduce others to someone in their network.  From an article in the Washington Post titled "An Unmanageble Circle of Friends":

"Jason Calacanis wishes he could be your Facebook friend, but he just can't. The Internet entrepreneur loves networking; the New Yorker magazine once wrote a profile of him called "The Connector." When people want to get from point A to point B, he's A and a half. But Calacanis now has several thousand friends, with more requests streaming in daily. He's tired. So on his blog this summer, Calacanis, 37, declared a Facebook moratorium. In the future he'll outsource his friend management to an intern.

While Calacanis may have burned out early, he predicts he won't be alone: "Everyone's going to face a level of this, too."

And then . . . chaos? Isolation? Abject misery? When we each reach that point where a utility that is supposed to bring us closer to our friends actually makes us hate our friends -- and the death grip that managing them has on our time -- where will we go from there?"

If there is a critical mass to your LinkedIn and Facebook that makes you give up, the secret is probably figuring out the max number you can do while remaining engaged and stopping there.  The Post article cites anthropology wisdom as the key:

"Part of the problem is a numbers game. Oft-cited anthropological research puts the maximum effective group size at 150, known as the Dunbar number. Some groups -- religious congregations, book clubs -- splinter off when their numbers get too high for members to bond. Facebook does not. Facebook allows its users to spread their time and energy, like butter covering an increasingly larger piece of friend-network toast. Do you want a lot of toast? Or do you want a lot of butter on normal-size bread?"

Simon Meth can probably handle 1000+ contacts doing what he does for a living.  But, to maximize the power of his network (and yours), he and everyone else need you engaged.   So, figure out your appetite for invites and requests and manage your LinkedIn or Facebook account accordingly.

What's your number?  100?  1000?  10?

Comments

[Lisa]

I am a fairly new user to LinkedIn and I ahve been working with this more than Facebook. I have yet to expand my Facebook profile beyond minimal. For me, it is not so much about the numbers but about the connections. I am making wonderful connections and am looking to add to that by developing a network local to my area. People network for varying reasons so quality or quantity really is an individual question. Engagement is key. It really has been fun . . .

[Con von Hoffman]

I think we’re starting to see a bit of a reaction to general networking sites for professionals. Sure you can collect a lot of pelts and show off how many people you are connected to but how many of those people are of any real use to you professionally? (Full disclosure: I work for www.spoke.com, a site that tries to connect business people in a much more focused way — in our case B2B sales, marketers and HR/recruiters.) In addition to Spoke, other sites have begun to spring up built around the idea of building networks that go deeper within a field or specialty instead of connecting with everyone on the planet. Our theory, and I think the theory of the similar sites, is there’s a real need for sites that let you connect on a peer-to-peer basis with people who know your business or job and can help you with it.

[Simon]

1000 first level connections is nothing! Ron Bates has 34,620. Check out http://www.toplinked.com/ to see the list of top linked folks. Well known educator in the recruitment space, Shally Steckerl, has 11,760.

Maybe it's my sparkling personality but I really don't get that many requests for introductions. I do get 5-10 invitations to join my network every day. I estimate that I spend 10 minutes a day replying and accepting invitations. For that small time investment I make some interesting connections...

[Phil]

Great Kris, You posted this the day after I asked to join your linkedIn network... I'm sorry if I pushed you over the edge. I promise I'll be a respectful and value adding link!

I agree in the idea that there can be too much of this social networking. When I first started with LinkedIn my company was conducting trials to see if it was a potential untapped recruiting avenue. We didn't buy it but months after the trials I started to get invitations to join others networks. Since then I've began to see the vision and potential for these networking methods. The key for me is to manage the quality and the reality of the connections. I don't accept everyone who asks to link and I don't request introductions from those I don't know well. Moderation in all things is usually a best practice.

[Simon Meth]

Hi Kris,

The comment above that is attributed to me isn't actually from me. I wonder how that happened? Also, the comments are from August '07 from your earlier post.

Thanks,

Simon

[Scott McArthur]

The number of contacts is pretty irrelevant to me. It is more about quality. LinkedIn has been really useful for me especially the "questions". It is much more useful than many of the other Web 2.0 tools. The upgrade policy is, however, just rubbish and far too expensive.