More people are spending more time texting, instant messaging, tweeting and linking their way through the day in the fond belief that all this effort enhances their ability to build social capital.
Many believe that if they network effectively, everyone they meet might be part of their contacts.
However, as with everything else you do, you will be expected to select only those individuals where you share a connection, an interest or a business reason. Of those you meet, many will not meet this criteria and you would be hard pressed to find a reason to stay connected.
The joint interest between these "weak ties" in a social network, and their willingness to help each other, turns out to be a very effective way of giving or receiving resources when needed.
When it comes to finding out about new jobs, or for that matter, new information, or new ideas "weak ties" are always more important than strong ties. Your close friends, after all, occupy the same world that you do. Your social network acquaintances, on the other hand, by definition occupy a very different world than you. They are much more likely to know something that you don't.
By being selective as to who we let into our networks, we retain the ability of instantly collaborating with many people across time zones and borders. The foundation of social networks is how the people we connect with think about the collaboration process.
The big challenge is to mine the tacit knowledge (in the heads of people where true knowledge resides) through providing an access method. The idea behind collaboration is that sharing knowledge leads to the co-creation of new actionable knowledge that leads to solution development.
The key issue is getting people to think of themselves as part of a larger, collaborative social community.
Source: 
When Doing It All Won't Do: A Self-Coaching Guide for Career Women--Workbook Edition--Paperback
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