Originally Published: March 2004
For centuries, businesses have used the most tried and true method of increasing sales – networking. Networking is the art of establishing solid relationships with business people and personal acquaintances and making use of these relationships to obtain referrals and prospects. The goal is to create enough of a comfort level that these business acquaintances want to either use your product or service or recommend them to others. With networking, building trust is the name of the game. Returning the favor by delivering prospects back to your contacts keeps these relationships strong.
Today, networking is still the most cost-effective method of gathering prospects, earning new business and growing companies. People feel much more comfortable with and have a greater trust level for businesses they know or those their friends know on a personal or business level. While face-to-face networking opportunities abound today, businesses, entrepreneurs, professionals and job seekers are increasingly going online to extend their networking opportunities. Online social networking, originally used mostly for singles or people looking for friendships (Friendster, Classmates, Meetup and AOL’s new ICQ Universe for example), is quickly beginning to develop into a viable option for professionals. The benefits of online networking include lower costs, reduced time demands and greater access to a multitude of peers to extend traditional methods of networking.
Many online networking communities offer their services free of charge. Advanced search capabilities and other premium services can cost in the neighborhood of $10 per month. These are very modest fees. With businesses slashing budgets over the last few years, these lower (or no) fees are a major reason online networking is growing quickly. It is a cost-effective supplement to traditional face-to-face networking.
Time savings is another important benefit of online networking. With online networking sites, networkers can search and reach a plethora of users quickly, without leaving the office.
Online networking can link users to thousands of geographically dispersed, culturally diverse people with just a few key strokes, offering a broad range of possible solutions to issues as well as potential prospects for business. A traditional networking event often includes anywhere from a few to as many as a few hundred people. A networking event with a hundred or more potential contacts provides an excellent opportunity. The online network can extend the face-to-face networking event by allowing more in-depth acquisition of information. It also allows the user to seek more contacts that align with the characteristics or profiles of the face-to-face event attendees that seemed to offer significant business growth opportunities.
Finally, organizations establish a time at which the event must start and end, of course. So, unfortunately, you may only get to meet a handful of individuals at each meeting or event. Online services allow you to network at all hours of the day or night with no time limits and no limit to the number of people with whom you can introduce yourself. This extends the face-to-face networking event significantly, adding value and increasing the return on your time and dollar investment.
By connecting thousands of businesses, professionals and job seekers at minimal to no cost, users are seeing the considerable benefits these networking sites offer. Some of the most widely-known business networking sites include LinkedIn.com, Zerodegrees.com and Ryze.com, and they are gaining in popularity.
There are downsides to online networking, as you might have expected. Detractors argue that online networking does not offer the same benefits of meeting someone face-to-face. I would tend to agree. Most business people prefer to personally meet and look into the eyes of those with whom they may do business. Online networking does not provide this face-to-face opportunity, nor does it allow you to use other forms of interpersonal communication to judge a person’s character, such as body language. It should be used as a supplement rather than a replacement for face-to-face networking.
Users of online networking must also be cautious about the qualifications of the individual providing information. False representation of position, company, experience, etc., is easier online and it pays to request and validate contact information or references. Be aware, be alert and be realistic in accepting or rejecting information or opinion. The next step to online networking should be the scheduling of a face-to-face meeting, if at all possible.
Networking has been proven to work face-to-face. Online networking will never replace traditional forms of face-to-face networking, but it is extending the face-to-face networking opportunities and making a push to go mainstream. Businesses and professionals are seeing the benefits of meeting online and the number of users continues to go up. With the constant barrage of commercial messages from traditional media outlets and the subsequent clutter it creates, online networking may be the one place to build trust and promote your business to a truly captive audience.
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