I really wanted to use a picture of a fight but …………. (smile). With all the hype surrounding Social media as a way to make contacts, it reminds me that it is even more important to meet contacts. As others have properly pointed out, it’s not about numbers, it is about conversions. And, in my experience, conversions occur face-to-face. Networking is still very much about “pressing the flesh” and “meet and greet”. Why do you think they have TweetUps? Even good little Tweeple recognize that, at some point, they are actually going to have to speak to each other in order to take the relationship to the next higher level (smile).
What social media really is, as Justin Foster puts so well, “old rules, new tools.” It’s still communication. Social media excels in the areas of branding and initiating some form of contact. Case in point. I was having coffee with Jacob Nordby the other day and as some people were leaving he stopped this one gal and said “Aren’t you …..”. And, yes, she was. They had never met but recognized each other from Twitter. This is a result of branding. Jacob was initiating a form of contact. Mission accomplished. And there are many avenues to get to that goal. Honestly, while social media can be a lot of work, by the same token it encourages folks to be lazy where it counts. Here are some of my favorite, and proven, old school methods: Continue reading “Networking Remains A Contact Sport”