There’s never been a better time to stay connected with your business network than right now. Business tends to slow down over the holidays and sometimes sooner if you are like me and snowed in a week before Christmas. This is a great time to take advantage of social networking sites to stay in touch and build your network. Over the next few posts we will examine how to do that effectively using some of the top social media sites. Today we start with the #1 business networking site – Linkedin.
5 Ways to Build Your Network on Linkedin
- Check out your Linkedin Inbox for Requests to Connect.
- Are you connected to all your current customers and vendors?
- Peruse the connections of your connections to see who you should be connected to but you aren’t yet – both people you know and people you want to know. Send requests to connect and don’t forget to personalize the message.
- Are you a member of a lead share group, BNI, committee, board of directors? Are you connected to all of your colleagues from these groups? This extends to charity work as well.
- Scan the membership of any groups you have joined on Linkedin. Are there people in these groups that you need to connect with?
- Scan the groups your connections are in. Are there groups you need to join? These can be alumni groups, trade associations, or networking groups. If you find new groups to join, return to 5.
I hope these tips will get you started on building your network while drinking hot cocoa or eggnog or hot cider.
If you want some guidelines on who to connect with, see my post Deciding on Linkedin Invitations.