“Grow your network before you need it.”
Great advice overall but not well received among the struggling businesses and unemployed citizens in a down American economy. But as an entrepreneur, it’s an adage I live every single day. While staying on top of client work, I also see the future of those contracts which will reach a point where goals are reached, lessons taught, and I’m waving good-bye to my graduated students. The hustling begins again. And the only way the system continues to work and income consistently flows is by reminding friends, colleagues, clients, and any contacts I can make that I exist and I can help.
I reflected a lot about the phrase “social networking” this week as I had an opportunity to speak to the Job Transition North Group of the Columbus AMA on Tuesday evening. “Get Social. Get the Job.” was the presentation I gave, and quite the draw it did pull. It’s an appealing idea that there might be a fabulous secret about the Internet that will cure all our financial issues. And in a lot of ways, it’s true. The misconception? A magic recipe and an overnight result.
When I think of social media, I certainly think of acceleration. The tweet beats the press release by length and speed. The news is no longer news because of the punch beaten by niche online communities. The blogger competes with the journalist because they own their platform.
Yes. Many things are faster because of what the Internet is capable of. But relationships, trust, networks, relevance. These are important aspects of a professional’s daily life no matter what they do that still take good, honest, hard work to achieve.
So how do you execute a presence effectively to build that rapport? Staying online won’t get you anywhere. Taking the social and turning it into real, mutually beneficial networking is the only way to be a success. Here are 5 actionable ways to turn your social connections into the network you’re going to need for a prosperous future:
1. Connect with a personal email.
What you have to remember about social media is that it is only there to start the conversation. You can’t continue to grow a relationship strictly in casual, public settings such as Facebook and Twitter. Tweet a follower if they wouldn’t mind forwarding over their contact info. Reach out to someone by way of a listed email address on their website. Ask for an introduction if you see a mutual friend who can connect you. Do whatever you can to have a conversation in a more personal venue and you’re more likely to be remembered and more intriguing than the thousands of other people your connection interacts with on their social networks.
2. Follow the Twitter hashtag for a networking event in advance.
The beauty of networking now is that you can break the ice much earlier thanks to social media. Take advantage of the fact that you can do your homework on the people you’ll be seeing at an event and start a conversation that you can finish in person, tapping into that event’s potential even further than if you’d have had to start fresh with everyone in the room instead.
3. Contact someone you wish to the gods knew who you were.
You can’t just hope they’re going to respond to your tweet. People with a decent following may not have the time to engage everything coming their way. But if you can find personal contact information for someone and make an attempt to connect on a more personal, exclusive level, it’s absolutely worth a shot that they’ll respond. And the good ones always do.
4. Connect those who should know each other.
Everyone wants to be the person who knows someone. And that’s quite honestly the easiest way to get through life. So make it happen for yourself. Introduce the people you know who should know each other and make those growing relationships work in your favor. Before you know it, they’ll be eagerly inviting you to know more of their network in return.
5. Do what it takes to get in their FACE!
If you’ve read my blog, you may have seen an article I wrote about the local online community, Cbusr. In an nutshell, what I said about it was that it’s a network that didn’t fail because of the fact that its members see the real live faces of the people they are interacting with by way of scheduled events. The network also emphasizes the importance of members getting together on their own time, one-on-one. That principle of making real connections needs to be one of the biggest goals about engaging in social media professionally, or you won’t find you’re gaining any traction with your presence at all.
What do you think about social media and how it can help your network? Sound off in the comments!
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