Social networking is a true symbiotic relationship

We are all members of numerous social networks - in many cases, way too many to be really effective!! But is this coming at a price for all the friends that we keep adding to each new media? The ability to follow your friends on multiple channels sounds great ....for the first week, and then unless you are a SNOS (social networker on speed) it will it will naturally tail off to follow the most interesting only. So what about the reverse - all the people following you. Why are people tracking what you do, reading your blog, watching your videos and  listening to you twitter on?

The reason is they want something from you, and of course you want something from them! So what do you get when you link up / add a friend / follow / join a new network group etc. Maki from Dosh Dosh explains what benefits you get:

Access to more data. You get to view more data on the user, some of which may be intentionally obscured from the public or other non-friend users. This allows you to network with the specific user in a more intimate and personal setting.

Greater communication options. Depending on the social site, when someone adds you as a friend, they open up more avenues of communication. This adds a greater level of interactivity: you can connect with the person who added you through private/direct messages, instead of the highly visible public channel.

Recommended content. When someone adds you as a friend (and vice versa), your activity or actions on the site may be recommended or ‘pushed’ towards the other person in some part of their admin panel or profile. This means that you’ll get greater visibility automatically whenever you use the social website.

Greater Social Proof. An auxiliary advantage of having many fans on social media websites is social proof, especially when the social site itself ranks the users according to the no. of followers/subscribers they have. Popular and visible users tend to accumulate friends more easily than unknown users.
Basically, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain when someone adds you as a friend on any social media website. They are giving you permission to share messages with them while bestowing attention on your recommendations/actions within the social site.

So as you can see social networking is the new symbiotic relationship of life! It is about both parties getting something out of the relationship.