Posted Under: Business, Networking, Online, Small Business, Social Media

We all are so busy in taking care of whatever we are busy in that we all complaint about not having enough time to do what we want to do or we should do… We procastinate and we fall behind more and more with everyday of such procrastination passing by… We all know networking is a “must do” in business and yet many of us just do not have time to do it… Well, here is a list of a few best practices to save you some time on networking and still effectively make the most out of your time investment.

• Join Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook for sure. Make good use of technology available.
• Create one separate dedicated email account for networking purposes and keep same password on each networking website, that way you know which email and password to login with no matter which social network you go to, you avoid cluttering your regular inbox with invitations and reminders and most importantly you avoid the distraction.
• Develop your basic profile on word or excel and update that every 3 months. Use this profile whenever you signup for any networking site, all you do is copy paste then. You’ll be consistent in your message and remember, a minute saved is a minute earned. J
• While sending invitations, introductions and/or connection requests, take time to write a brief note on who you are, and why would you like to connect. If you’re sending mass/multiple invitation via those contact import features, write a broad yet brief introduction and how you help your contacts.
• Set up time limit on your networking efforts as you can get carried away because networking can be very addictive. If that works for you, good, but for me what works is, I login to these websites when I want to take a break or do not feel like doing anything else or am truly looking for connecting with someone. Make it fun and enjoyable instead of making it a duty.
• Over the period, develop a database of all your discussions and interactions and leverage on that to answer similar questions and requests instead of typing same material over and over. Develop your own template database.Most social networking websites have a feature called “Status” or “What are you working on”; utilize this feature as much as you can because that’s the quickest and easiest way to reach everyone in and even out of your network without sending messages.
• Don’t just look for clients and customers, be ready to be a customer, be ready to be a mediator, be ready to share, be helpful, be giving, and be reciprocative…
• Treat your contacts as people and not numbers… Keep in touch; don’t keep the trophy – “I’ve a million contacts on network”. How many know you, help you or even remember you? Keep in touch.
• Don’t be a kid in the candy store, prefer quality over quantity…

With all this being said, the most important fact to keep in mind is that nothing beats a personal relationship built on trust and credibilty earned with face to face meetings and discussions. So, add a flavor of offline/ face to face networking to your networking efforts, invite your online contacts to happy hours or a quick after work drink, may be a sandwich in the lunch time or a coffee in the evening…

Good luck!!