I think one of the challenges with social media is learning how to turn your online network into an actual network. While it’s true that many of the people you’ll connect to online are people you might also see offline, not everyone you connect to is someone you see regularly. So the challenge that arises is how to become more than just an internet connection to someone.

Recently I’ve begun paring down my Linkedin connections. While I appreciate that a lot of people have chosen to connect with me, beyond being a number in my connections list, I don’t know most of them or how they will actually be meaningful to my life. So to determine if there is a possibility of a real relationship, I’m writing to my connections and asking them to tell me about themselves and what their needs are.

I’m not writing to them to solicit them, but I do want to know who they are, what’s important to them, and if I can help them in any way, shape, or form. Maybe I can connect them to someone I know or maybe I can answer a question, but I want to be more than a number and I also want them to be more than a number.

I also figure that if someone doesn’t write back, they probably aren’t interested in actually connecting with me in a meaningful way, so I’m willing to let them go as a connection, because I know nothing will come of a connection where I am just a number to someone else.

The challenge of turning an online network into an actual network is that the people you connect with have to be people with real needs so that you can really network with them. By writing a message to a person I’m connected to on Linkedin, my hope is that I’ll actually discover their needs and also become a person to them. My hope is that we’ll actually start networking for real instead of just accumulating numbers.

What about you? What makes a connection on any online site into a person who you are learning more and networking with?

Recently I attended a biznik event where MJ Cherkauer and Teresa Rodden presented an interesting approach to networking. Instead of just offering the usual elevator speech they asked participants to ask questions such as: “If your business was a color, what color would it be?” or “What street in your city most resembles your business?” Now these questions are admittedly a littler colorful, but they are also useful questions because they get you to consider your business from a new light.

For example, I was asked the second question I mentioned above. I decided to describe my business in terms of how it could help someone navigate busiest traffic on on a very busy street. When people heard that, they got a lot out of it, and they felt like they had a better understanding of how my business could help them or someone they knew.

The benefit of getting creative in telling people what it is we do is that we can tell people in terms they can understand. One of the biggest challenges businesses face is the ability to tell people what it is they do in a manner that makes sense to those people. Using some creativity and getting a bit descriptive can tell people about your business from an angle they haven’t considered before.

You can also ask other people creative questions to help them describe their business in a different way than they usually would. Not only will it help you learn more about them, but it’ll challenge them to think differently about how they describe their business.

Networking is an activity all businesses and many professionals need to do, but we should take it upon ourselves to get creative about it. And we should also take it on ourselves to learn more about the person beyond what s/he does, because in doing so we get a better feel for his/her personality and can then think of people who fit him/her well.

Networking doesn’t have to be boring. It can be an exciting activity, if we are willing to spice it up. I knowing spicing it up the way MJ and Teresa recommended has been useful for me to do.

I’ve mentioned before that I see the word connection thrown around a lot and I’ve question what connection really means in the context of social media. Let me tell you now what I believe it can mean, provided a person is willing to re-orient his/her perspective about it. What connection can mean is the ability to think of other people you can introduce someone to, in order to help both people. You can do this via social media or in-person, but what’s vital is that you actually think about what each person needs, so that they actually can help each other out.

Connection probably sounds like networking, or at least what networking can be, if its done with the goal being to help other people as opposed to just getting referrals from someone. And to me that’s the point of connection. It’s not about you, but about your network and your ability to help you network. And whether you do this via social networking or offline networking the point is that connection doesn’t mean something if you aren’t actually doing some kind of connecting.

I approach connection as a kind of game. Can I find the right person or people for this person’s problem? And usually I can, because I want to know those people anyway, partially to help them out, partially because I want clients, and partially because I can refer them to someone. And that’s what connecting can mean, if we don’t think of it as just an activity showing off how many followers we have or who the most influential person is that you are connected to (Personally I’d like to be the most influential person I know, because then it means other people are coming to me to get help of some sort).

So what does connection mean to you and what can it mean to you? How can you help your social and/or offline network and how will you help them?

Occasionally I mention Third Tribe. It’s an internet marketing community I belong to. I get a lot out of it, from the interviews they do with established internet marketers, to the forums where you can get your questions answered by a lot of other people who are also learning and doing internet marketing. It costs $97 a month, but the payoff is you get access to a lot of great information about internet marketing that you can apply to your business efforts. You get to ask me and people like Chris Brogan questions about internet marketing.

You can also join the third Tribe affiliate program (I’m in it), where if people join through your link you get 33% of the proceeds. Sign up today.

No matter how interconnected social media sites seem to be with each other, the truth is that following up is an activity that should occur on the site you got a response from, as opposed to every single site. And if your definition of following-up also includes occasionally asking people questions or commenting on something they said, regardless of whether or not you think you’ll do business with that person, posting your follow-up to every site you are on can ultimately be more of a gaffe than a benefit. A follow-up isn’t always about business, so much as it is about showing people you care.

My approach to following up with people via social media depends on the actual site I’m using. What works for Twitter won’t work for Linkedin or Facebook because the sites have different interfaces, which dictate how the technology can be used. With that in mind the following tips are offered as a way to help you with your follow-up activity on different social media sites.

Following up via Twitter

Twitter provides a number of avenues for following up, though some avenues are more effective than others. For instance, while retweeting can certainly be thought of as following-up in terms of doing an activity that makes you visible to someone you follow, it does little to spur conversation on, in and of itself.

A reply on the other hand is much more effective. You are commenting on what someone has said, and there are better chances of getting a conversation to occur, because you aren’t just forwarding the announcement out to your network. A reply also shows that you are actively interested in what the person is saying as opposed to passively passing it on.

A Direct Message is also effective for following up with people privately. I usually use a direct Message when I want to ask the person to take the conversation to a different medium, but I also use it to thank someone without taking up bandwidth publicly.

Following up Via Linkedin

With Linkedin following up tends to occur via the email service Linkedin provides, though you can also follow-up by commenting on someone’s status. While I think commenting on status can be useful for following up, if I want the person to contact me and pursue a possible business relationship using their internal mail system seems to be more effective.

You can also use the initial act of invitation as a follow-up, but as I mentioned in my previous post on the subject, make the effort to personalize it, if you choose that particular option.

Another way to follow-up is to write a recommendation. I do this twice a year as a way of thanking people who stood out to me in a notable way over the course of the last half year. It’s a great way to remind that person of you and your working relationship.

Groups is useful for starting discussions around information you want to offer about a particular topic or subject area. I follow-up in the discussion thread if people comment, and if the subject gets very interesting, I’ll send a private message to the person to see if they want to also talk offline.v I treat the Q and A forum in the same manner.

Following Up Via Facebook

Following up in Facebook can be done in several ways. Depending on what your goal is you may favor one approach over another. Choosing to like something isn’t following up. While it might tell someone you liked their status, it doesn’t meaningfully engage them in a manner that’s actually significant.

A private message is useful if you want to direct the person toward a different medium of conversation. I’ll take a conversation to Facebook mail when I’m making arrangements for an event or following up about something a bit more private than I would wish to air publicly.

Comments are where follow-up really occurs. Commenting on someone’s status update can easily lead to conversation. If you have a fan-page, it’s important you check your fan-page as you won’t get notifications of comments. I see a lot of conversations occur in Facebook comments and I think its wise to follow-up by commenting on what someone said on there.

Following-up on Biznik

Biznik unfortunately doesn’t provide status updates, so following up is limited to using their version of e-mail, compliments, and choosing to comment on an article or forum topic. I’ll admit I don’t use the forums often, as I find it hard to keep up if there’s a lot of scrolling involved. I use compliments in the same way I use Linkedin Recommendations, to follow-up in a positive manner with people who stood out to me in the last half year. I use Biznik mail when I want to connect with someone or I’ll just pick up the phone and call as most Bizniks have their phone numbers listed on their profiles.

What about you? How do you or would you customize your approach to following-up on different social networking sites? What constitutes following-up to you?

Over the last couple of months I’ve been getting more involved with chambers of commerce as an alternative to lead referral groups for my networking and one of things I’ve noticed about each chamber I’ve attended is the focus on the local community and supporting local businesses. What I’ve found is that chambers are an excellent resource for local businesses, both in terms of advocacy for businesses and for the networking opportunities they provide.

As you spend more time at chamber events and get more known, you also learn a lot more about your local community and the needs it has. You learn about the school district that’s making more cuts and is trying to figure out how to preserve its programs, employees, etc., and how you can actually help out with that work.

The more I’ve gotten involved in the local community, the more I’ve come to realize just how important it is to be aware of what’s happening at the local level, as well as how you can help your local community out. For small businesses, the local community is the lifeblood of the businesses. Involvement in a chamber provides insight into the local community because not every member of the chamber is a business person. You get interaction with people from across the community with their own concerns and perspectives on issues.

Reaching out to your local community is essential to really understanding the bigger picture of having a small business. A small business doesn’t exist in isolation and the networking contacts you make can help make your business grow. Networking at a chamber provides a benefit of enabling you as a business owner to connect with your local community and with people in that community who can support what you are doing.

Attending chamber meetings isn’t enough. Get involved on a committee and also learn more about situations that are occurring in your community and figure out how you can help out. And take time to frequent other local businesses. Show your support of them by visiting them and buying from them.

The more you reach out to your community, the more your community will know about you. Your chamber of commerce is one way to reach out and connect with your community. What about you? Are you involved in your chamber? How else would you suggest reaching out to your community?

I’ve been changing my approach to networking quite a bit since late April. One of those changes has involved asking myself who I’m meaningfully connected with. When I think of meaningful, I think not just of the frequency of connection both on or offline, but also how much I know the person, and also what kind of active relationship I have with that person.

For example, if I attend a leads referral group each week, I would rate my connection to each of the people as fairly weak, even if we are actively passing leads. The only way that will change is if we actually meet with each other outside the group, and even then the connection could be weak if all we talk about is business.

A different example: I’ve recently started working with a web developer. I’ve brought him in to one of my clients and we might be pitching another client. We obviously have a good business relationship, but I’ve decided to extend it a bit further, so we’ll be getting together for lunch or dinner to talk about other things than business. Why? Because I feel that getting to know him outside of business gives both of us an opportunity to strengthen the existing relationship.

The more actively involved you become in someone’s life, the deeper the connection that’s established. This doesn’t mean you need to become best friends with everyone you network with, but it does mean that getting more involved is a really useful way to meet people and grow connections, which in turn can help grow business.

A final example: I joined a task for a local school district. The opportunity for connection it presents me is that I get to know some people outside of the context of business…we’re focusing on how we can help the school. So it allows me to see a different side of those people and what’s important to them. The result is I’m connected in a deeper way than I was before.

Networking isn’t just about passing business on to other people. Networking is really about making strong connections, learning about people, and helping them.

What do you think? What are you doing to deepen your connections with other people?

When you belong to a networking group that meets regularly one of the aspects that makes or breaks that group is how often people show up or don’t show up. If you want to build a relationship with someone, one of trust, how you build that trust is through consistency. If people only show up part of the time, when its convenient for them, as opposed to actually making time to be at the meeting on a regular basis, you can;’t build a relationship with the no shows.

Networking is a commitment. And it’s not social time…it’s business time, which means that you are showing up not just for your business, but for everyone else’s business, especially if you are paying dues. The reality is that travel time, money spent on food, and dues is a significant investment that goes in, in the hope that each person will be doing their best to show up and also be looking for business not just for themselves, but everyone else. That can’t happen when you don’t have consistent attendance in your networking group, because you can’t really trust the people who only show up occasionally and don’t recognize that their lack of commitment is detrimental to your business as well as their own.

Interview with Sean Harry about networking, job hunting and learning that it’s not about you, it’s about them!

No social media coach radio this week, because I’ll be in a class, but it’ll be back next week.

Yesterday I posted how I looked for information on how to create a custom tab for a fan page. If you want to learn how to do that, go here. Let me tell you why I think you should. What I’ve realized about Facebook is that’s becoming the Google of Social networks. More and more people go to it and use it than any other social network. And why not? Facebook has so much information and interactivity and even more with customized tabs.

A customized tab allows you to create a Facebook with an offer from your business or a coupon or some kind of special that will get people interested in what you do. Because there’s only so much space on a Facebook, you want to limit the tabs you create to a few, but each of those tabs can help drive people to your website or to an offer for your business.

The other reason to create customized tabs is that it allows you to stand out to the people you are interacting with on Facebook. Someone who sees a customized tab will likely remember your fan page, more than your competitor, especially if that competitor is just using the standard fan page set-up. Customized tabs create more interactivity because they show people what you can offer. Treat your fan page as a mini-website, with lots of interactivity. When you do that, instead of trying to get people to go to your main website, you’ll generate more interactivity on Facebook and get people more interested in actually contributing to your fan page presence.