Before Twitter and LinkedIn, there was Networking—and it helps to refresh ourselves on the fundamental rules of networking off-line. Why? Because people are people and the principles of networking haven’t changed just because you’re doing it on the internet. And the techniques are innate to humans and the communities they gather in. Regardless whether you live in Karachi or San Fran.
The three foundations?
- Find a way, that doesn’t cost you much, to help others. Give them a reason to want you in their network
- It’s not what you know, it’s not who you know either. It’s who knows you. And more particularly, they need to know what you can do, what you’re good at. And most importantly, they must be able to find you (like everything in marketing, it all comes back to your Keywords!)
- Focus on a niche: you can’t be all things to all people. No niche, no Keywords, no marketing. Lead generation is then down to your dialling finger. Boring and unproductive and annoying to those being spammed (yes, I think cold calling is the most egregious type of spam.)
Where is online really powerful? In harnessing loose connections, your friends of friends. This concept was put forward in Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. That your close friends don’t find you jobs or clients because you tend to know mostly the same people.
Which undermines the belief of so many professionals venturing into the Social Media, that they will only connect with people they know. Or even worse, people they respect. Rather negates the power of ‘Connections of Connections’ when you only have 50!
Cheers, Toby