Atomic Cowboy Events
Welcome to the series Sunday Social Networking Tips. The plan is to bring in folks to share their best ideas about social networking. The next person to write up a tip could be you!
Tip:
Get Involved
Okay, so you’ve gathered a few thousand followers on Twitter, hundreds of connections on Facebook, and you’ve added dozens of LinkedIn contacts. You’re feeling about as involved as you could be. Heck, in your area, you’re the most connected person around right? I bet not.
One of the most fundamental mistakes folks make is that having added someone to their address book is the same as making a real connection. Heck, you’ve probably added a dozen people’s birthdays to your calendar. How many of them have you actually purchased a present for or attended their birthday.
Now that you realize you have a problem, let’s talk about some ways to get involved.
1) Attend some local events – art openings, launch parties, even sporting events. Take along your business card, your camera, and a smile. These will go a long way at getting you noticed but they give you an in for conversations.
2) Build a real address book – this may seem old fashioned but many of us have become content to have a social networking ID and an email address for each of our contacts. Pfft. That’s not a real address book, that’s a contact list. If you have so many contacts you can’t put them all in a pen/paper book, consider fleshing out your PC’s addresses. Start by collecting mailing addresses and phone numbers of those you spend your 90% time with. The rest will come over time.
3) Write to them and about them – now that you’ve been to a few events, added some contacts, and really gotten their detailed contact information, it’s time to do something with all of that. Start small, send cards, letters, and invitations. Move beyond on that for the most open folks; set up and interview them for your blog or someone else’s.
4) Make yourself accessible – give our your own information. Don’t just settle for giving your Twitter ID and email. Give folks a phone number, an address, and a reason to contact you. A reason? Yep. Share something about yourself that will drive future conversations. Best done by giving people just enough to hook them without answering every question they might have.
If you’ve made it this far, and taken the steps outlined above, chance are you are quickly rising to the top of the social heap in your area. Remember, social networking existed long before web 2.0. The same principles still apply though.
Coming soon will be an article on business cards. if you’d like to share your insights on where to purchase, what to put on them, and how many to get, I’d be much obliged.
Todd
Social Media Club St. Louis
St. Louis Bloggers Guild
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