The Creative Pathfinder Lesson 11 Worksheet: Combining Online and Offline Networking This worksheet will help you grow your network exponentially by combining face-to-face and online networking. 1. Offline to online When you meet new business contacts in the real world, use online networking to continue the conversations and grow the relationships. (i) What online networks are your contacts using? Go through your collection of business cards from networking events. How many of them feature social networking profile links? What social networks are most common? Which networks do you receive the most invitations to join from people you know? Which networks do people around you talk about the most? 1
(ii) Get passports to several networks Chris Brogan talks about having passports to lots of different social networks. A passport is simply a user account and profile page, which gives you access to the network. You don t need to be regularly active on all of these networks! You have more important things to do than spend all day on social networking sites. But having a passport means you can be found on the site by people who want to connect with you, and respond to them if they contact you there. And you never know when a particular network will become so important that you decide to devote more time to it. E.g. I had a twitter account that I hardly used for months, until I finally realised what all the fuss was about, and started using it regularly. To get you started, here are a few social networks where you should set up passports: http://twitter.com http://www.facebook.com http://linkedin.com http://behance.net - particularly if you have a portfolio of design/graphic work http://myspace.com - musicians only Different sites have different types of profile, but at a minimum you should include: Your real name A portrait photo (using the same photo across different networks will help people recognise you) A brief description of your work and/or business A link to your website (see lesson 9 if you don t have a basic website already) (iii) Social docking Get into the habit of adding people as online contacts (what Russell Davies calls social docking ) shortly after meeting them face-to-face. The sooner you do this, the fresher you will be in their minds, and the easier it will be to continue the conversation. When you coming from a networking event, empty your business cards onto the desk next to your computer, to remind yourself to do it. 2
2. Online (i) Focus on one or two networks Ideally you want to identify one or two social networks where you are active every week. These are the ones that deliver the best return on investment, in terms of building relationships with the people who matter to you. Being active on social networks is an important way of maintaining visibility within your community. People aren t joking when they talk about the digital village, where people feel comfortable doing business with familiar faces. And you don t need to spend huge amounts of time doing it. You can maintain a lot of relationships and visibility in as little as 15 minutes a day so you could do it during a coffee break or a quiet period of the working day. Different networks serve different purposes, and allow you to connect with different types of people. Here are some distinctions between some of the most popular social networks bearing in mind that these aren t watertight, and there is quite a bit of overlap: Facebook For connecting with family, friends and (potentially) fans. Many people have Facebook accounts who aren t active social media users. So if you want to reach normal people, it makes sense to have a presence on Facebook. Twitter For sharing content and connecting with online influencers. Twitter tends to be a more tech savvy audience, and it s the place to go if you want to get close to bloggers and others with large audiences online. Many are surprised to discover that 35-55 is the most popular age range for twitter users (teenagers and students are more likely to be on Facebook and MySpace). You may not reach so many people on Twitter, but the ones you do connect with are likely to be more engaged and responsive than on most other networks. LinkedIn For maintaining your professional network colleagues, clients, and other people you have had business dealings with in real life. LinkedIn deliberately makes it harder to connect with people than on other networks, as the site is designed to mirror your real life professional network. Behance The Behance network is a slick and stylish network built around portfolios to showcase creative work. If you have a visual portfolio to display, and you re trying to attract commissions from agencies and big brands, Behance is a great place to get your work seen. It s also good for getting support and feedback from your professional peers. See also my article The Top 10 Social Networks for Creative People. http://bit.ly/ax9qnf 3
(ii) Find your friends Most networks have a feature that allows you to import the e-mail addresses of your contacts from your e-mail software, which generates a list of people you may know on the network. Use this to start your list of contacts. Next, go to the profile of a popular friend, and look through their list of contacts, adding the ones you know. As you grow your network, the site will probably keep feeding you suggestions based on the people you already know use this to keep adding to your list of contacts. (iii) To friend or not to friend? There are different opinions on the etiquette of adding new contacts to your network. Whatever approach you take, you have to accept that someone, somewhere, will take offence or tell you you are doing it wrong. In my case, I find it weird when strangers try to add me as a Facebook friend or LinkedIn contact without giving any explanation. But it probably seems perfectly normal to them. On the other hand, I don t follow everyone who follows me on Twitter, because I want to keep my interactions on Twitter meaningful and manageable. Otherwise, I d end up with a twitter stream of updates from thousands of people I ve never heard of. Some people get offended by this, and say it s polite to follow everyone back, but to me that would devalue the network. LinkedIn is another disputed area. This site s creators deliberately want you to limit your connections to familiar and trusted contacts, but some power networkers such as Chris Brogan and Lewis Howes take the opposite approach, on the principle that the more connections you have, the more value you can add your network, and take from it. You can t please all the people all the time, so don t try. Observe, experiment, and see what works best for you. (iv) Listen This is often overlooked, and it s probably the most important part of all. Spend time listening to online conversations, by reading updates from your contacts and noticing how they interact with each other. This will give you a wealth of information, not just about the individuals concerned, but also about what works in online networking. Pay attention to the people who are doing it well, and making you (and others) want to get to know them better as well as those who make you want to avoid them! 4
(v) Join the conversation You won t get anywhere by being a wallflower. As well as listening, you need to add something to the conversation yourself. As with a real-life networking event, your best bet is to join the conversation gracefully and naturally, showing interest in others and doing your best to help or entertain them, or just hang out and have fun together. Easy ways to do this are to share links to interesting or useful articles, and to answer questions that other users are asking. It s fine to include occasional links to your own blog posts, articles and new products or upcoming events but beware of looking too selfish. If all you put out is sales messages, most people will lose interest. If in doubt, err on the side of generosity, by linking to other people s blogs, websites videos, etc. Every week, I receive messages from my Twitter followers thanking me for the useful links I share. The payoff to me, of course, is that if I established a reputation as a source of useful resources, I will naturally attract more followers. Another pitfall to avoid is talking too much about the mundane details of your daily life, which is encouraged by networks that ask questions such as What are you doing?. It s important to be yourself, and come across as a human being, but I prefer to do this through banter and chitchat, rather than telling everyone what I m having for lunch, which I can t imagine will interest them remotely. So unless you routinely slay dragons or rescue children from the top of tall buildings, beware of sending out too many updates about your daily activities. The bottom line. Before hitting publish ask yourself Why would anybody want to get this message? Will it be something they are glad to receive, or will it be one more piece of chatter cluttering up their screen? 5
3. Online to offline (i) Go to social media events Many towns and cities now have regular meet ups for social media users. As I said in the last lesson, likemind.us and MeetUp.com are good places to find meetings in your area. (ii) Look for Tweetups Find local Tweetups by searching Twitter for Tweetup plus the name of your town or city. Be brave, and go along! (iii) Suggest meeting for coffee When you make online contact with someone in your local area who is really interesting and potentially useful to you, then suggest meeting for coffee next time you re both in town. I ve done this with loads of people over the past few years, and quite a few business relationships and projects have resulted from it. (As I said in the lesson, take sensible safety precautions, e.g. meeting in a busy central location, not the remote clifftop at midnight.) (iv) Organise your own Tweetup If there s nothing going on in your area, or if you re particularly adventurous (you re a Creative Pathfinder after all!), then organise your own Tweetup. This article will show you how: http://mashable.com/2009/02/25/tweetup 2010 Mark McGuinness - All Rights Reserved. 6