How to find pearls and gems in the pile of manure?

There are many social networks online of which many offer great tools for connecting, branding and promoting. With all kinds of people joining them.

Having contacts on social media that see your content means nothing when you do not make an effort to build and maintain these contacts in either B2B, B2C (or both) relations.

On many networks the majority of members are either spammers or people posting only content provided by programs and posted a zillion times already. Which has nothing to do with proper social media marketing at all.

On larger networks it can be tricky to find people you want to follow and want to build a relation with for mutual benefit. Yet I found valuable pearls and gems. On most networks there are a fair amount of people that are posting quality content and contribute in a positive way. People from which I learned a lot. Some of them became real friends and/or partners. There are also people I have no close relation to but who I follow because the give tips and insights about several aspects of online marketing.

Although I have many contacts the number I follow actively are limited. With actively I mean that I visit their profiles regularly to see if I have missed new articles. 

I  think that readers are leaders so I read a lot. In general I only read articles and revpages I have an interest in. And occasionally ones with a headline that peaks my interest or curiosity. 

My point is that I actually read them most of the time. And I read the comments; this way I also found many interesting people to connect with and to follow. Reading and thinking about what you read is the only way to find out if a person in knowledgeable in a certain field. And checking if it is an original article or a spinned article from a directory. That and reading comments. By making an effort to write comments that ad value and by posting good content yourself others will find and follow you. 

Building such relations takes time and effort but it is time well invested. Human resources on social media sites is one of the most powerful assets you can imagine and crucial in my opinion. I would not be where I am now if I had not found these pearls and gems of people.