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If you're just spending time on relationship building solely for link building, then your missing the bigger opportunity and measuring the wrong KPI, IMO. There are benefits to increased social reach, RTs, G+, Shares i.e. social signals and traffic.
FWIW, at least the industry's heading in the right direction. Relationships alone do not equal links (and you can get links without relying on relationships), but the (SEO) world is a better place with people focusing on relationships rather than opting for the non-relationship crap we used to see (by which I mean crap directories, paid links, reciprocals, etc.).
I agree automated crap is not what we need to do.
the problem is people talk about relationships as the best & only way to build links.
Unfortunately relationships don't scale that well the thing that can scale is value.
Relationships are not meant to scale. You can't get hundreds of friends, even having that many acquaintances is difficult. It doesn't work that way. So the relationship is just part of the equation. The link is not the goal of the relationship. It's just like you don't befriend people to make them borrow you money, but once you are friends they will probably. I can't explain it in short, I have written a whole post about it. See my comment below.
anyone with the word 'scale' and 'relationships' in the same sentence is doing it wrong. anyone who thinks 'making friends' is an alternative to 'creating links,' which are likely tied to client quotas is also doing it wrong. does link building involve more humanistic notions post Penguin? yes, for most, unless you're one of the elite builders who can still build links in a former fashion under G's radar.
Should getting a link assume you're providing value? in an ideal web, yep. does that way of going about it ensure your brand must be delivering on the assumed promise of providing value (that's why there is a business and subsequent products/services, right? sigh.) yep- check. so if you're providing value, there's no trick or process involved. It involves releasing content of value. links are a byproduct. Your clients have quotas?-understood. then you need to be proactive in branding and exposing more people to the brand to see the content to get more byproduct links. can you completely estimate the number of links that way? no. Should clients be expecting a certain number? perhaps not, but the former way of linking sure made them expect them, didn't it?
I have written a reply to this: http://inbound.org/articles/view/relationship-building-is-not-about-seo-at-all
Relationships are forged for their own sake and are not a one to one replacement of link building. On the other hand online and real life friends can help you get links. Read my post to see what the actual difference is.
Building relationships is what it is all about. In a sense we have gone full circle from the old days when people would get in their car with a brochure and go and see someone, through to no client contact because we have a website to now back to relationships allbeit in a virtual sense.