So very true. This short video from Seth Godin is chalk full simple wisdom. You don’t need thousands of friends or followers.

What you do need is a “tribe”. An authentic tribe (friends, colleagues, customers) that you have something in common with, can converse with and share relevant, useful information with.

Don’t waste your time trying to build up your followers list with spam generating “VIP Follower” tools. It makes you look cheap. And really, what’s the point? What are these VIP followers going to do for you?

Outside of your immediate and obvious tribe, there are people you might want to connect with to tap into their social influence (more on that later). Follow them, they may follow you back, and look for opportunities to engage them with questions, @ replies or retweets, when it makes sense. You may be surprised to find that even uber popular SM gurus will respond. I was shocked to get a response from @guykawasaki to a question I asked him on Twitter.

More on strategically building your “social media capital” later.

Seth – luv you’re glasses…