Networking on Google+ simply is not the same as Facebook or Twitter. Facebook, we assume that you already know the person, whether from twelve years of school or in the last thirty minutes at church. Twitter is about gaining followers and following people that you want to read about in the 140 characters. Even LinkedIn has a purpose of a job.
Google is about getting the information to people through their search engine. Google+ is designed to hit the personal side of this data that any number of search engines simply seem unable to do without the human environment. To say that Google+ is only a social network is to miss the purpose. But to recognize the motive of Google and how you can leverage that can put you ahead of the curve.