I recently had a conversation with someone who has been doing a lot of research about social media and how to integrate it into his business. He was struggling with this decision because people continually told him that social media was the new way to network. My response? Social media is a new way to network, not the new way to network. Social media allows you to have conversations with people around the world who share common interests. It would be virtually impossible for you to network with this kind of audience in the traditional sense, but social media enables conversations with the click of a mouse. Consider these scenarios professionals often face:

  • If you need advice on a certain topic, you can take a few minutes to post a question on a social media site and you could have dozens of ideas and suggestions almost immediately. Without social media, you could spend hours making phone calls to your network, leaving messages, and hoping someone returns your call soon.
  • If you want to see what your customers think about a new product or service, you can ask them directly and have answers in minutes instead of weeks or months.
  • If you are trying to build your own brand, you can connect with influencers you might never be able to reach in-person.
  • If you read an interesting article from which your customers could find value, you can share it with your entire network within seconds. For added bonus, use a link shortening tool (like bit.ly) to see how many people actually clicked on your link.
  • If you have news to share about your company that does not necessarily warrant an official press-release, share it via social media and reserve press releases for the really big news.

A critically important element of any social media strategy is to give more than you take. If you are asking questions, remember to answer questions for others too. Follow people or companies you find interesting and comment on their material. The rules for engaging on social media are not much different than the rules for engaging in any business conversation:

  • Be authentic
  • Be courteous
  • Be of value to others

Social media enables different kinds of conversation and it complements your face-to-face networking; it does not replace it. The real value of networking is connecting over conversation and building a relationship. Now, those relationships can be built just as easily over coffee via your keyboard as they can over coffee at a breakfast networking event.

[Image courtesy of srbichara]