As a marketing consultant I have a similar message for clients:

Follow the smartest people in your field, and use social media to do it.

And that’s the beauty of social media, it makes it so easy to spend time with people much smarter than you.  Heck, you can (and should!) spend time with your competitors.

Then go to someone’s account and take a look at the people they follow and where they’ve left comments.  But you must first subscribe to their feed (a single click) in order to see who they follow and where they’ve commented.

Then click on “subscriptions,” the people they follow, and check out some of those people by hovering your mouse over a person’s icon to see a short blurb about them.  Go to their feeds and subscribe to them if they seem interesting.

Next click on “comments,” which shows you what they’ve commented on.  The thought here is people leave comments on the people’s feeds they are most interested in.  So, comments are a direct line to the people they think are smart.

Yep your mother was right, and social media makes it easier than ever to spend more time around smart people.