Social networking can work if you participate
Yesterday, at the lunch 2.o meeting, I met one of the attendees, who recognized me because I post to the Linkedin forum he moderates. We chatted for a bit about the forum and a weird linkedin bug that’s moved some discussions into jobs. This isn’t the only time I’ve met someone in person who also recognized me from online interactions.
The majority of articles I’ve seen out there (and a fair amount I’ve written), focus on social media, but don’t necessarily touch on social networking as much. But the reality is that social networking is more than just a buzz phrase. Participating on sites is a form of networking that does have real world applications. One of the reasons I post articles to linkedin forums that are local is so that if I do meet people in person and they recognize me from those forums, we have talking points, beyond “What do you do?”
Networking on social networks involves actively connecting with people you know and also don’t know. On Linkedin, for me, it involves posting to discussion forums, answering questions and making a point to personalize responses to invitations or actual invitations I send. All of these activities fall under networking and all of them can help you connect meaningfully with people that you interact with on these sites.
Remember that networking is about connection and follow through. The same applies to social networking. There are always ways to follow through on your social networking. consistency of posts, for example, can help a lot, but also making a point to write responses to people who comment on your posts. You connect by posting, and you follow through by responding. This can lead you to build relationships with people, that sometimes turn into offline relationships as well.
What do you think? How do you actually network on social networks?
Categories: social influence, Social Media, social media behavior
Tags: networking, Social Media, social networking, Taylor Ellwood
