Once you have determined the strategy you are planning to implement as you use social media, it is time to start building your network. There are many parallels to networking in “real life” and networking online, the channels where networking takes place are the difference.
If you are working on expanding your “real life” network, you might do some of the following things:
- Attend events, conferences, or parties where the types of people you need to network with are likely to attend.
- Join groups or clubs centered around interests where you can meet like-minded people.
- Have friends or colleagues facilitate introductions.
- Take key contacts to lunch.
People skills online and offline are really not all that different. While networking online your main channels are not primarily parties, conferences or events, but they are blogging communities and networks such as Twitter. The way that you utilize these channels will require appropriate etiquette and people skills, just as meeting people at conferences does.
Blogs
Posting comments with your URL will help build strength to your site, but in building a network, you must first care about the content of the blog and the bloggers that have labored over it. Anyone can smell a greedy, link spammer a mile away. Building a strong network will require genuine relationship building and adding value when posting comments.
Blogs have quickly become some of the best resources for gathering information and for connecting with people that you might not have the opportunity to connect with in real life. A link that is posted from a popular blog, linking to your blog, can increase readership. Building strong relationships with others online will make the experience more enjoyable and will also provide a greater opportunity for you to acquire links from other blogs, giving your message more traction.
When increasing your network, begin to read blogs of those that are writing around your subject matter. Offer feedback, post links, engage in communication and expand your network as you build relationships.
Networking through Twitter
The answer to all of your web traction woahs is not solved by acquiring thousands of users on your Twitter account in a non-strategic fashion. Venture Beat offers a case study of a Twitter user that was placed on the “Suggested Twitter User” list. The user, Dash, had 18,000 followers and his follower count has risen to over 260,000 and climbing. However, “250,000 new followers did not increase Dash’s retweets, replies, or clicks. ‘Being on Twitter’s suggested user list makes no appreciable difference,’ he wrote, in how much attention he got back.”
“Whenever Dash links to one of his own blog posts, the click-throughs to his blog are about the same now as they were when he had one-fifteenth as many followers. It seems that his original 18,000 had sought him to interact with him.”
Twitter followers that have expressed interest and are tweeting on subject matter that concerns you and your message is beneficial. Find people on Twitter that have shown interest in your subject matter that you are offering and begin to interact with them. Answer questions, share information, post links, expand your network.
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Great tips all around Hannah, and I would add to it what I am finding out about the awesome networking power of sites like Digg and StumbleUpon. I'd never really been very active on either, thinking that it might be a waste of my time, but I could not have been more wrong.
Not only does being an active Digg/SU user help to shrink the web and present a lot of the best content in one place, but the people who make the sites tick are very active, willing to share the great content they find, and willing to help you get whatever message out that you are trying to broadcast. When you go into it with a "pay it forward" mentality and not expect people to do-do-do for you, it is a very rewarding experience that ultimately ends up helping you out in the long run. And, as I've learned, it fills up your gchat with a lot of people who are knowledgeable about social media, blogging, and the ever-changing web.