Guide to Online Business Networking

Here's a four-step process that will help you get the most out of your online networking activities:

1. Get focused. This is the #1 mistake most people make with networking, both face-to-face and online. Even though some of your best results may be unexpected, that doesn't mean that networking is random. You need a system to make sure your activities align with your business objectives or you can spend a lot of time and effort only to produce no results.
2. Get prepared. If your profile for every new networking site you join or personal introduction you make is written from scratch off the top of your head, you're creating extra work for yourself. Have the information you'll need over and over at your fingertips before you start and you'll be far more efficient and consistent.
3. Get engaged. In a few venues, you may get some minimal value from passive participation, but for the most part, you have to be at least moderately active to achieve any real business value.
4. Follow up. Simply meeting new people and adding them to your database doesn't generate new business very effectively. Relationships, not database entries, are where the real value is. Get to know people one-on-one and find out how you can be of service to each other.

Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• Remember that networking is not just about lead generation. Don't push for the sale, focus on the relationship. Create value for the other person with every interaction and it will all come back to you (and more) in the long run.
• When in Rome, do as the Romans. What's acceptable in one site, list or forum isn't necessarily in another. Get to know the site's culture and feel before jumping in.
• Don't say or do anything that you wouldn't say or do in person. Keep in mind that it's a real person you're talking to, and all the standard rules of acceptable behavior apply.
• Balance the personal and the professional. You decide where along that spectrum you're comfortable, but not enough personal and you will have a hard time developing friendships - too much and it may damage your professional image.
• Do what you say you will do. Every honored commitment, no matter how small, enhances your reputation - every broken one detracts from it. If you can't keep the commitment, don't make it.

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