Building your connections and relationships is a vital part of growing your business which is where networking comes into play.
How can you marry this with your social media presence?
Networking involves meeting and interacting with others to exchange information and develop professional or social contacts. This did involve getting out from behind our desks and meeting suppliers, customers and other like minded business people. With social media now playing such a huge role, it appears that some have put attending events on the back burner and networking on social media at the front of the queue.
Valuable personal relationships
On the whole, personal relationships underpin virtually everything in business – people buy from people.
We believe there needs to be a balance between social media and networking.
Attending events allow you to meet people face-to-face, putting faces to the names of your suppliers, customers and businesses. There is just something about meeting people that makes that connection stronger than a connection made solely online.
Using social media to connect and follow up with those you have met at a conference or a breakfast is a must. This allows you to carry on the conversation, helping to build your audience and share content with them.
Sharing content and photos from events is a great way to show your audience what you have been up to and it allows you to engage with those who are also talking about the event online.
Bring new contacts online
We are astounded at the number of people that do not follow up with people they have met on LinkedIn. It is important to invite contacts that you make to your network. LinkedIn is just a great way to stay in touch with someone that knows you.
We believe that the key to success and growing your business is finding the balance between the two and spending your time wisely.
How do you marry up online and offline networking to reap the benefits of networking?