How to Network Effectively

Success in business requires you know what other people know but also who other people know. But networking takes more than just a LinkedIn profile or a deep Rolodex.

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Making connections and maintaining relationships with the people who support you throughout your career can be the key to success for most individuals. By effectively building a network of colleagues, business associates and more, you are ensuring that whenever you need a new client, a new job, or to develop your skills further, you can call upon your network to help you.

Networking is perhaps more crucial than ever, as an established relationship can make you stand out against the competition. For anyone who has ever worked as an intern at a large organization, one of the best pieces of advice you'll receive is to network, network, and network more while you're there. Take advantage of the access you've been given, go out of your way to meet other intelligent individuals and build up a network of contacts so that when you leave (or if they do first), there is a foundation for a relationship in place.

This guide will teach you about the different categories within your network of contacts, how best to utilize some of the newest features on LinkedIn and lastly why face-to-face networking also known as in-person offline networking is still the best.

How to Network Effectively: Networking Categories

Back when snail mail was the main form of business communication, it could take days to establish a connection with someone from another company. With the advent of the telephone, professionals gained the ability to just pick up the phone and call someone to make that contact. Today, technology has in many ways made even telephones unimportant. With only a person's name, you can Google them, look at their LinkedIn profile, their Facebook information and if they tweet then their Twitter stream. The availability of information on people has drastically improved, but it doesn't detract from the importance of old-fashioned offline networking. If you ask ten different people to define networking, you'll get ten different answers. But according to The Oxford Dictionary, a network is "a group of people who exchange information, contacts, and experience for professional or social purposes."

"The real definition of networking to me is building relationships before you need them," says Diane Darling, an expert on the topic and the founder and CEO of Effective Networking, Inc. based in Boston.   "It's difficult because we tend to only do things in life when we need to. But if you're running a marathon, you don't wait until the morning of the race and then just go out to run. On that day of the race, you remember all of the time and hard work you put in ahead of time while training to get to that point. With networking, when you really need a job or new clients, empowering your existing contacts is the key to getting you there."

When considering your contacts, Darling recommends that you think of them as five different subgroups within your network, try not to interconnect and view it like an inverted pyramid.

1.    Database: Everyone in your contact that you've interfaced with (email, phone, speaking engagements, rolodex, Twitter), this is the largest group.

2.    Network: Your friends and family network, alumni network (example: University of Florida alumni), or business network, these are specific sub-groups but people you trust. They should rarely go over 200 contacts, and to determine if someone is in your network, consider if they would immediately return your phone call. If they get back to you, then they are in.

3.    Inner Circle: Ideally about 50 people who can rotate annually and give you candid career feedback about your career. Darling likes to put together a survey at Surveymonkey.com every two years so these people can give her honest thoughts without fear of offending her.

4.    Personal Board of Advisers (PBA): 5-6 individuals you are particularly close with and who should be your go-to network for advice that not only touches on your career, but on you. How are you doing as a person?

5.    Friends, Family and Fools (FFF): The most obvious group, these are people who probably like you because they either have to, or they just do.

Dig Deeper: Social Networking Answers for Skeptics and Newbies

How to Network Effectively:  Social Media Networking

While networking has always been vital to business relationships and growing a client base, it's never been quite as easy as it is now. While face-to-face-interaction remains the best form of networking, you no longer need to rely on snail mail or even phone calls to interact and create a group. With social networking sites, you can research and connect with other professionals easier than ever. And the leader is LinkedIn, a seven-year-old business-oriented social networking site. As Darling notes, it's called hybrid networking, so taking the online to the offline (digital relationships to face-to-face meetings).

Launched in May 2003, LinkedIn has seen its biggest growth the last few years. It has gone from 30 million members and 200 employees in early 2008 to over 75 million worldwide members and over 600 employees, according to company spokesperson Krista Canfield. Additionally, a new member signs up for LinkedIn every second of every day, and the users span 200 countries worldwide.

There are plenty of additional options out there for social media networking (from the obvious ones in Facebook and Twitter to the less obvious like Ning, Yahoo! Groups and more). But the real value of LinkedIn lies in using it to discover the hidden connections between your network and the rest of the world. There's not a lot of social tools or games, which is good because you won't get lost in all the features as you may on other sites. But to be successful on Linkedin, you must have a completed profile and have some a strategy.

According to a recent report from Nielsen, Americans now spend more time using social networks and online games than they do e-mail. In June alone, U.S. Internet users spent about 22.7 percent of their online time on social networking sites, up from 15.8 percent just one year ago, the report said. But there are tips and tricks to using LinkedIn (beyond simply creating a profile and connecting with contacts) to get the most out of your experience.

Dig Deeper: An Introduction to LinkedIn


How To Network Effectively: Utilize LinkedIn's Features

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Lou Dubois

Lou Dubois is a Philadelphia-based Social Media Editor for NBC Universal's local news affiliate (WCAU-TV). He is an experienced writer, editor and marketer who has worked with and written about Fortune 500 companies and small businesses, focusing on social media, emerging technologies, small business success, entrepreneurship, sports business and corporate policy.  Previously he worked for Social Media Today, Sports Illustrated, the Associated Press and SOBeFit Magazine, along with various newspapers.

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