If you have the opportunity to go to an event where you have a chance to meet new and interesting people, you’re mad if you don’t use that opportunity to make new connections, or reinforce old ones.
Using these events as opportunities to meet people in the flesh is an oft forgotten part of networking in today’s digital world, but still essential to establishing relationships built on all those things that humans invest in. There’s a degree of trust and understanding in relationships that include face to face contact.
The problem is with some of these events, particularly pre social media, was that you’d exchange business cards and short of maybe exchanging a phone call or email, it may be months or years before your paths crossed again.
With networks like LinkedIn and Twitter there’s a real opportunity to not only start new relationships with people you admire and may find valuable to your extended network of knowledge and skills, there’s now an opportunity to develop and maintain those relationships.
So, don’t forget to do your homework when you get back from your networking event and find out where those new contacts hangout online. Don’t leave it too long though and make sure if you send a request, put a personal note with it about where it was you met or what it may have been you discussed. May the conversations begin!
If you’d like to connect with me, here’s where you’ll find me:
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn & Google+ just for starters
Don’t forget to check out what training we’ve got coming up if you’d like to learn more about how to make social media work for you.
Kim V. Goldsmith 