The purpose of networking is to build mutually beneficial relationships. That is hardly achievable if the only activity one engages in is attending events and exchanging social media contacts with other attendees. The idea is to form a symbiotic relationship - one where the parties involved are helpful to each other or one another.
It will be more productive if after introductions, participants discuss
- shared interests
- projects they worked on or are working on
- the challenges they face and how they can overcome them
- open source projects they (can) contribute to and learn from
- connecting themselves to people or communities who are interested in what they’re doing
The good thing is, one does not have to be at tech events to do these. Connecting with people on social media like Twitter, LinkedIn, Slack and Discord over the discussion topics listed can help foster the type of relationships desired from networking.
‘Networking’ at tech events to connect over LinkedIn (to probably increase your number of connections) or exchanging WhatsApp contacts (to probably increase the number of your status viewership) is only that good. It is more important to have quality, mutually beneficial relationships than to have many ‘connections’ without mutual benefits.
Keep this in mind always - focus on giving value, first. Focus on giving value first before and above anything else. Also focus on being the first participant to give value.
Cheers! May your net cast out work for you!