I'm all for social media.
I'm very much a part of it.
Unfortunately, it seems the goal is digressing back to the poor habits of bad business networking techniques.
The main reason for attending a networking event is to build business.
Sadly, some people think the goal is to collect as many business cards as possible.
It's not.
The objective is to make quality connections with people that can offer or send business your way.
If an attendee leaves a networking event with one hundred business cards and hasn't made a personal connection or impression, what was the value?Why waste the time? She could have easily looked in the phone book for a hundred new names to ad to the mailing list.
My goal is to make 1-3 quality contacts and good impressions at each networking meeting.
The chances of follow up and real business are much greater.
Today we have internet social networks.
They can be exciting networking avenues.
Unfortunately, once again, bad habits die hard and the goal seems to be name or "friend" collecting without really getting to know anyone.
If you want to be a someone on myspace, Facebook or LinkedIn you need "friends".
How much time does it take to collect a thousand friends?How many wasted hours are lost to amass enough friends to help get your blog post on digg's front page.
Yes, friends are part of that algorithm too.
As I write this article an old college friend, who I've not talked with in fifteen years, just emailed me.
He sent a request to be added to my friends list a couple days ago and this is the first email I've received from him.
The email said: "vote for your favorite TV show".
What happened to how have you been for fifteen years? No real communication.
That's just as bad as the people who think they are communicating with you by sending you six joke of the day emails.
I have made good connections with old friends, found a little extra traffic to my blog and even shared my portfolio through networking sites.
But, additional networking tools are needed to make these sites more valuable.
Use some old school methods such as the phone, postcards and standard email to follow up.
Ask good questions and build relationships.
I maintain that if you want to play the business numbers game, stop wasting time, buy a list.
I'm very much a part of it.
Unfortunately, it seems the goal is digressing back to the poor habits of bad business networking techniques.
The main reason for attending a networking event is to build business.
Sadly, some people think the goal is to collect as many business cards as possible.
It's not.
The objective is to make quality connections with people that can offer or send business your way.
If an attendee leaves a networking event with one hundred business cards and hasn't made a personal connection or impression, what was the value?Why waste the time? She could have easily looked in the phone book for a hundred new names to ad to the mailing list.
My goal is to make 1-3 quality contacts and good impressions at each networking meeting.
The chances of follow up and real business are much greater.
Today we have internet social networks.
They can be exciting networking avenues.
Unfortunately, once again, bad habits die hard and the goal seems to be name or "friend" collecting without really getting to know anyone.
If you want to be a someone on myspace, Facebook or LinkedIn you need "friends".
How much time does it take to collect a thousand friends?How many wasted hours are lost to amass enough friends to help get your blog post on digg's front page.
Yes, friends are part of that algorithm too.
As I write this article an old college friend, who I've not talked with in fifteen years, just emailed me.
He sent a request to be added to my friends list a couple days ago and this is the first email I've received from him.
The email said: "vote for your favorite TV show".
What happened to how have you been for fifteen years? No real communication.
That's just as bad as the people who think they are communicating with you by sending you six joke of the day emails.
I have made good connections with old friends, found a little extra traffic to my blog and even shared my portfolio through networking sites.
But, additional networking tools are needed to make these sites more valuable.
Use some old school methods such as the phone, postcards and standard email to follow up.
Ask good questions and build relationships.
I maintain that if you want to play the business numbers game, stop wasting time, buy a list.