5 Quick Tips to Successful Social Business Networking

Social Business Networks inexpensively interconnect professionals online, in particular, independent entrepreneurs and smaller companies. Social Business Networks also give you the opportunity to showcase your experience and achievements within your network. If you are an entrepreneur or small business owner, you need to be literate in the current world of social networking profiles, tools, and online connections to stay competitive and promote your business.

Participating in social networking is an often-overlooked small business marketing tool. In the real world, our networks are hidden. Social networking sites solve this problem by letting you see who your friends and connections know, who your friends, friends know and so on. You then are free to contact anyone that interests you by inviting them to join your own social network.

If you are looking to expand your contact base, LinkedIn and Facebook are two of the more popular services that facilitate business-oriented connections. Facebook showed a 270 percent increase in visitors in 2007 over the year before according to comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world. Ecademy and Xing are also popular business networking sites.

Here are 5 quick tips to successful social business networking:

1. Take the time to learn how to properly use the business social networking site that you join. Most social networking sites offer online tutorials. Many sites allow you to post your own user generated content in the form of blogs, pictures, slide shows and videos. Many users do not use the social networking sites to their fullest potential by taking advantage of these features.

2. Don't let your ego take over and join in the race to build up a massive list of contacts to show off your "social power." If you have more than 500 "friends," take the time out to sort through these "friends" to be aware of the people you may be attracting to your network.

3. Build and manage your online reputation. According to a report on MSN, several companies are now using the "friends" on an applicant's social-networking page as references. Not only are they looking at your page on sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, they may also take the next step in contacting your friends. The old days of a page with three references and three phone numbers on it that you controlled are over. With social business networking, you open up your rolodex for the whole world to see.

4. Be professional. Type your posts, e-mails, comments or chats in a professional manner and do not use internet slang such as "lol", "omg", etc. Type your email, comments or chat messages as if you were standing in front of the person speaking face-to-face. Let's face it; this could be your first impression with a potential client or HR recruiter.

5. Establish a Routine. When logging on to your preferred Business Social Networking sites, set aside a designated length of time to spend here. Have some specific goals in mind when visiting the site.

Don't take a pass on the whole social networking trend. Millions of professionals are learning how social networks work, how social networking works, and how shared applications can be viral and ever-present. Don't miss out on this opportunity to create a successful social business network of your own.

Robin Matuk is an Internet Business Coach who addresses the needs of entrepreneurs and business owners looking to maximize the power of the Internet to build, manage, and grow a thriving business. She is the founder of My Digital Coach, and a a blogger at Creating with Impact [http://robinmatuk.typepad.com].

Fundamentals of Powerful Business Networking

Business Networking is as old as business, which in turn is as old as the human sentient state. What are the underlying, unchanging precepts of networking in a competitive, goods and services oriented arena? Understanding these principles can put us in a powerful position in the business world if we understand, practice, and apply them.

One of the elemental issues revolving around active business networking is the competitor, non-competitor matrix. Simple strategies of networking can only involve non-competitive interests. If you are networking with your direct competitor, you will tend to be very protective, and this inhibits the flow of benevolence back and forth, thus throwing cold water on networking activity as a result.

More advanced and sophisticated networking strategies however, can and do engage fierce competitors into deep cooperation. This is a huge advantage if you can achieve it, because your competitors market is also yours. Again though, there has to be some pretty advanced tactics in order to gain that position. We'll come back to this issue with more insight after we establish a few more important fundamentals.

The next matter involves forums. Forums are simply the venue in which your network can operate. There are meeting style networks that meet once per week for breakfast, or once per month for coffee. These companies are employing the "Meeting Forum", and it is great for some types of exchange. There is also the telephone forum. Sometimes, local service providers use the phone extensively. Maybe there is a roofing company, a painter, a window cleaner, and a landscaper in a localized network. These companies are not competitors, so they feel free to share leads with each other. The telephone is a great forum for this kind of network exchange.

Another important base concept in networking involves traffic, messaging, and real estate. There is virtual real estate upon which we can post our messages, like Television or Radio. Likewise, there is literal real estate, usually along a busy thoroughfare, where we can place our signs. The internet has real estate in the form of internet addresses, and some are traffic oriented, but others are process oriented. Just like some companies are not located on busy streets, but they do place their signs there, likewise, some internet addresses are not in the traffic, but they do put their links on sites that have a lot of traffic, like entertainment sites and the like.

A non-competitor may be synergistic with your company typographically. In that case, the active market of that company is likely to interest you. On the other hand, if the networking prospect is not in proximity to you typographically, then there would be less potential benefit in business network exchange. This is where the concept of network to network association becomes viable. A business to business relationship is more delicate than is network to network, and value could be gained from that more involved approach.

A final though is about expansive interests and localized interests. There are local networks, regional, national, and global. Some regional companies want to expand to national reach, and some global companies want to be able to drill down into targeted localities. As we begin to transcend the limitations of our own immediate interests, we can see more clearly the coalescence of higher cognitive manipulation of accumulated networks.

Reflecting back on the trail of principle we've left behind in this article, we can begin to imagine how the engineers of the global economy are type categorizing not just entities, but actual networks too. Networking has indeed reach the age of true power through internet categorization, traffic, messaging, and virtual real estate.

Jeff Rogers is the President and Founder of http://www.dragnetmarketing. He is is an internet marketing strategist who focuses on the online viral phenomenon. He has created free Viral Video pages that amass ad real estate downline as more people and companies use them for presentational and networking purposes. . See Jeff's Blog at viralvideopage.blogspot.com

Business Networking Techniques

Over the last 6years I have presented to nearly 30,000 delegates and a wide variety of audiences and what I have learnt beyond doubt is that about 99% of them don’t like business networking.

“I feel uncomfortable entering a room full of people I don’t know.”

“I get nervous when I see an invitation I ought to accept”

are just two of the comments I hear. Or a third comment,

“It’s not for me I get enough business through referrals and recommendations.”

Now, that third response always brings me to ask what is the fundamental difference between getting business from referrals and getting it through business networking? Simple answer, the

If you are content to wait for third parties to dictate the growth rate of your business, that is fine. Rely on clients and contacts to make those recommendations. However, if you want to dictate the growth of your business then I believe the most cost effective way to spread your message about who you are what you do and how your clients benefit from buying your services and products then business networking has to be the answer.

Having spent literally hundreds of hours analysing these negative attitudes to business networking, I believe I now have most of the solutions to help overcome people’s fears and anxieties. Let me share my findings with you. Can I ask how do you feel when you go somewhere be it business networking or social and you are not likely to know many people. If you are like my seminar delegates or audiences you tell me things like:

“I could make a fool of myself”,

“I may not belong here”,

“I am going to feel well outside my comfort zone”,

“I am likely to be embarrassed”,

and the list goes on and on.

I know the key learning point here is virtually everyone feels the same, therefore as a consequence if you feel totally relaxed and comfortable you are abnormal! Don’t worry, there are just a few of us still around. Don’t misunderstand me but I know the root cause of all these fears, it is your mother’s fault. My mother, your mother, everyone’s mother, what did she tell us about strangers? That’s right never talk to strangers. What she forgot to tell us when we became mature teenagers that there was no harm in safe environments in talking to people we don’t know.

I now give you that permission because you will never be rejected. Rejection, that is the overall fear to networking. Zig Ziglar, that famous and international motivational speaker said “Fear false evidence appearing real”. Now think about it for a moment. When have you been rejected when you have approached someone at a business networking event or social gathering? My guess is never, unless of course you don’t do it in the correct manner.

Imagine a scenario. Your clients have invited you to the opening of their new premises and have been kind enough to include you on their guest list. Let us move into that room. There are 50 people there and the only people you know are the hosts. You said your hellos to them then they move on to greet other guests. Now is the moment when I ask you to remember that 99% of the people in that room had similar misgivings and doubts. So, if it is a bar do, go and get yourself a drink and look round the room and you will see them. There they are standing alone near the wall like Billy and Betty no mates. These people are standing there because of all the fears we have mentioned so far. They feel as if they have 2 ton of lead on each foot weighing them down, unable to move. At best this is due to unease, at worst raw panic. Knowing now how they feel, take your drink, go up to them and from a short distance smile. Ask if you may join them, extend your hand, shake hands and introduce yourself. I think first names only are a great way to start to build a business relationship. Most of us struggle with names, let’s keep it simple. At this moment please, please believe me, you will not be rejected. You will never be rejected. They will want to make you their friend for life at this point. They will want to give you a big mental hug and more than likely they will offer up a little prayer of thanks. No one stands on their own by choice, they do it because of their lack of self-confidence, their worries and their misgivings. Even at this early stage you and Billy or Betty will have at least four things in common:

1. You are both fellow guests of the same hosts.
2. You both know no one.
3. You are both in the same business networking event.
4. You both travelled to get there.

There are many easy subjects you could discuss. You could talk about your hosts. You could comment on the room if there is something different about it or you could ask “so Jo, (it’s changed now from Billy or Betty Nomates because they have told you their real name) so Jo, how far have you travelled today to get here?”

It does not matter what the opening question is as long as it is something Jo won’t have any problem answering!

Believe me when I tell you that unless the person is truly antisocial, and yes it does happen very occasionally, the conversation will begin to flow. More often than not, there will soon be common topics to talk about. It may be where you both live, where your businesses are based, the fact that you are both in the same sort of business. You may both be suppliers to the host. By this time, you will both be feeling much more relaxed.

And finally, a quick tip. If you are nervous about entering a full room at a business networking event, get there early. This gives you a chance to chat to your hosts a little longer and it is likely they will introduce you to fellow guests immediately. This of course, rules out lots of the negative feelings, which we have already covered.

In other articles on business networking, we will talk about:

1. The problem people have with remembering other people’s names.
2. How to build relationships through the power of small talk.
3. How to extricate yourself, one person or a group of people
4. How to break into groups
5. How to park people with others, understanding that business networking is all about giving first and receiving second.
6. Finally, how to leave any business networking event with real potential business opportunities.

Kintish specialise in training professional individuals, companies and corporations in business networking techniques via seminars, in house work groups and major events. Kintish has provided learning to some of the biggest names in UK finance as is in great demand as a speaker at business events.

Extracting Value From Your Existing Business Networks

It very much used to be, "it's not what you know, it's who you know!" Unfortunately your business contacts will only get you so far, unless you really know how to extract value out of your existing business networks and relationships.

This rarely happens due to a lack of education in the area of specialised networking. As business owners, we generally focus on how to develop a marketing campaign, sales processes and how to write business plans (even though few businesses seem to be operating with any of these anyway).

But when do I ask, is the time taken to develop a clear cut business networking strategy? Next to never!

Considering it is one of the most cost effective strategies to attract new clientele and reduce your client acquisition costs, why is such an important aspect being over looked by 1000's of small to medium enterprises and companies?

Purely because of the huge gap in understanding the processes involved in extracting such value from ones networks. It is not as simple as exchanging a few pleasantries and business cards at networking events. That makes up 1 %. It is about the processes and strategies that are implemented following that initial meeting that makes the difference.

With the price of marketing our businesses ever increasing and the return on investment ever decreasing, businesses must shift their focus rapidly to succeed in such a competitive business environment.

So how do you extract value out of your pre existing networks?

There is an entire tool kit of strategies and alliances you can establish with another business owner that will see you both win at the end of the day and have your customers jumping for joy.

They may include:

- Host Beneficiaries
- Cross Promotional Strategies
- Affiliate Programs
- Referral Strategies

I have seen many businesses generate millions in revenue by hugely effective and what some would say, overly simple referral strategies. The funny thing is, the simpler the better when it comes to business alliances and networks!

It is sometimes the simplest of strategies that provide the most value to you, your business, your colleagues business and your customers.

Do not overlook what is sitting right in front of you with your existing networks. We are in such a well connected society, so connected in fact that in most business networking circles you are only ever 1 degree of separation away from your ideal client.

The above strategies are simply just processes utilised to extract those clients and direct them to your business. They are channels, even pathways to your door, website or phone but they do not work unless you build them and maintain them with care.

All of these strategies have one common denominator, they are all about who you know, who your colleagues know and who your clients know. The real benefit comes however when you utilise different styles of alliances to obtain and extract value from your network, as they will from you.

At the end of the day, what's another name in your phone going to do to help you grow your business unless you dial the number and put the wheels in motion?

Ben Angel is the author of the new controversial book 'Sleeping Your Way to The Top in Business - The Ultimate Guide to Attracting & Seducing More Customers.' To purchase your copy, visit http://www.benangel.com.au today.