Networking is only as good as the people in your network. If you have just a small handful of people with little influence, chances are there won’t be much in the way of results. While quality is good, quantity is also very important when it comes to social media. If you are struggling to build up your network, check out the following 10 methods of growing your contact list.

1. Make yourself accessible. Make sure you have made your profile SEO friendly so people can find you easily.
2. Find friends of friends. While you shouldn’t do this indiscriminately, you will often find many like-minded people in the contacts of each person that is following you. Make sure you do the research though, since some of those contacts might not be quality ones. Avoid spammers whenever possible!
3. Be active. You will attract a lot more people if you are actually participating in the online conversation. Being active will also help people that you befriend decide to follow you back.
4. Give to get. When you retweet or link to other people and help them promote their business, they are often more than willing to help you out in return. This is the essence of online networking, but it can help you gain followers, as well.
5. Turn offline contacts into online ones. Look up people you know in real life and add them to your online networks. When you meet someone at a conference or elsewhere, ask them what their username is on Twitter or LinkedIn and be sure to add them.
6. Interact with others. People might not notice your random tweets, but if you are messaging them, they will definitely notice. This works on any social media network, interacting and creating a conversation with others will get you noticed and you will gain followers.
7. Promote yourself. Make sure you have links to your social media profiles everywhere you can, such as on forums, your blog and even email signatures.
8. Actively seek out contacts. There’s no need to be spammy, but you can find your favorite entrepreneurs on your favorite social media networks, then just send them a message, letting them know you admire them. Chances are, they’ll follow back.
9. Don’t be afraid to ask. Send those friend requests. You might be turned down, particularly if you aren’t well known, but the vast majority of people will accept you anyway.
10. Do great things. You don’t have to save the world, or anything that big, but if you make a splash in your niche, people will start looking for you on social media. This could be giving away a great ebook, offering a sale or simply presenting some useful information on your website.

The bigger your social network, the better the publicity. You don’t have to focus on just one social site, work at getting more followers/friends on all of them and you’ll see a boost in traffic and publicity for your business.

I’d love to hear how you build your social media network, as well.