New Way of Thinking About Networking

Instead of thinking about a network, let's envision a net.

If you place yourself at the center of this net, you can see how your direct links, or connections, extends outward. And each of those links extend outward as well. Yet they are all interconnected. This is what we want our net to look like, and even more, to "work."

I meet too many entrepreneurs and business people who believe or act as though their selling efforts are all direct one on one transactions with their prospects and customers. What they don't realize is that when they build a network, much of the selling and prospecting can actually be done by other people. A network helps you multiply yourself.

In my networking workshops, I ask the question, " How many friends and acquaintances, conservatively, do you think you have?" The answer usually ranges between 200 and 500. My next question is, "How many people do you think each of those people know?" Then we do the math. Conservatively, if each of these people knows only 200 people, that person is " connected" to 40,000 people, only one person removed! Just imagine the numbers with the second and third levels of connection!

So the first hurdle to overcome in building a network is to recognize how powerful connections can be. This is the very important people side of the business that many have a hard time acknowledging or understanding.

In any business, there are relationships to be built. These enable positive progress. We call these relationships a network. People's careers rarely progress solely through individual work; there are usually several people involved in an individual's successful career or business.

Many people cringe at the suggestion of "networking." They feel that they may be building insincere relationships or compromising their true selves by rubbing shoulders with higher-ups in the organization. So, out of principle, some very capable people don't network.

So, let's set the record straight. Networking is not about collecting business cards. It is not about pretending to like someone that you aren't. It is not about catering insincerely to a boss or potential clients.

Networking is about building reciprocal, synergistic relationships with people throughout your organization, your business community, and your life. It is caring about others' progress more than you care about your own. It is establishing trustful, supportive bonds with people who share your goals, or your business goals.

The powerful side of building this network comes with your delivering excellent quality and service. As you build your network, and you provide great service, your network will start to work for you. People will talk to people. Satisfied clients will refer you to others. You are net will actually work.

So, when we look at networking as a sincere effort to build mutually beneficial relationships, it can actually be fun! When you take the focus off of yourself, and place it on others, your whole picture of building relationships can change. You become other directed, rather than selfish. You become caring rather than self -- absorbed. You become interesting rather than boring. Doesn't this sound better?

This approach puts a different focus or in how you can build and enjoy your networks. Instead of collecting as many business cards as you can, and writing the obligatory mail merge letter the next day, you can give yourself permission to have one or two more lengthy, other-focused conversations with people at a networking event.

"Other focused" is a key word in this equation. Many people make the error of trying to get the person to know about their business, as their primary objective of the conversation. People see through this immediately. If you show a true interest in the other person, and avoid trying to talk about yourself in the first several minutes of the conversation, you will go a long way to building what can be a mutually beneficial relationship.

The reality is that the strong majority of people will turn around and ask you about your business, after you have shown a true interest in theirs. This is how reciprocal relationships are built.

One word of caution. Reciprocal relationships don't necessarily mean immediate benefits. You've got to be patient. A network is built over years. One person at a time.

And the more sincere, and helpful you are, and the better quality you deliver, the more mutually beneficial (and fun) your network will be. Yours will be a net that works!

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Social Networking Websites - Play it Safe

Although social networking and online sites such as Facebook can be quite useful and are extremely popular, it is important to remember that sharing too much information online can be risky. In fact, there are several types of information that many people commonly share on social networking sites that should never be shared online.

If you are planning to go on vacation, never broadcast this online. Too many times the result of sharing vacation schedules and plans ends up in burglaries. Sharing your schedule of when you will not be home is never a good idea. It's better to just tell your friends through email or the phone and then broadcast that you went on vacation once you're back.

You should also never post your address, birthday, year of graduation or any other type of personal information on these sites, because doing so could put you at risk for identity theft. Information that is commonly used as "security questions" for passwords, such as your mother's maiden name, elementary school, or high school are also bad things to post online.

If you collect items of value, such as art, coins or jewelry, you should not discuss this on social networks either. If you do, you could put yourself at risk for theft. This also applies to talking about a new car you may have purchased, or any other information that could make your belongings tempting to criminals. The less information you share about your personal possessions, the better.

Even sites that are designed for professional networking can offer opportunities for problems. For example, if someone knows where you work, and has access to a list of your contacts, they could easily send damaging information about you to your employer, business contacts and customers.

Times have changed with the advent of social networking and excessive sharing of information online. However, it's always good to remember that human beings have not changed and that there are always scam artists out there that are just looking to get away with whatever they can. Whether you post something on a site that you wouldn't want your boss seeing or you disclose information about your whereabouts to the public, you're inviting a problem to occur.

As a general rule, you should never put anything on social networks that you wouldn't feel comfortable telling a total stranger. After all, you never really know who is going to read your information, or what they could possibly do with it.

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Social Networking Identity Theft

Social networking. Most of us do it. For some of us it's an addiction. But it can be dangerous. Social networking identity theft is on the rise as more and more identity thieves adapt to this increasingly easy way to steal your identity. Once they have your identity, the sky's the limit. They can drain your bank account, run up your credit, and virtually destroy you financially. And it all starts with some "innocent" communication online.

The social networking statistics are in, and they aren't pretty. According to PC World, one third of members of social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and MySpace have at least three pieces of personal information posted on their profile that can make stealing their identity easy for identity thieves. These include full names, birth dates, addresses, phone numbers, names of parents, and names of children. When pieced together, this information makes it as easy as creating a fake profile on one of these sites.

Although nearly 80% of people in the PC World poll said they were concerned about their privacy on social networking sites, about 60% said they had no idea what their privacy settings were and who could see their personal information on those sites.

Scary statistics? Yes. A playground for it? You bet.

Social Networking Identity Theft: Prevention Tips

Follow these tips to avoid becoming a victim of social networking identity theft:

Personal Information: How much do you want the world to know about you? Remember: Your friends aren't just finding you on Facebook. Social networking identity theft scammers may be seeking you out as well. Keep your personal information safe by not posting your full name, birthday, address, phone number, and other private information that could be used to find you. Don't even think about posting seemingly harmless information like when you'll be out of town or when you're at the gym. A growing is to identify when you're gone and then pounce to break-in and rob your home. Sound crazy? It happens all the time. Think before you tweet "Going on vacation for a week."

Learn the Rules: All social networking sites are different and they all have their own rules. It scammers take advantage of this vulnerability and prey on you before you even know what happened. They know the faster they get to you, the faster they can rob you. Before you register with a site, read the privacy policy and terms of use to avoid becoming another victim of it.

Restrict Access: You're in control. Always remember that. You don't have to share everything to the world. Most social networking sites allow you to restrict access to your page so only "real friends" can keep up with you. Steer clear of social networking identity theft by only allowing people you actually know (not even friends of friends who could be posing as identity thieves) to be friends and follow you.

Google Alerts: This is free and easy. Just setup a free Google Alerts notification for your full name. You'll get an email every time your name shows up in a search online. This helps prevent it because you can see where, how, and why your name is being searched for online. If it looks suspicious, such as someone pretending to be you, you can take immediate action.

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Social Networking - Significant Challenges

Social networking sites provide many important benefits and allow people all over the world to socialize or meet in a way that could have been unimaginable by the people few years ago. Despite of the benefits it can give, there are also some significant challenges that are possible to exist and you need to face.

It is very easy to get drawn into the field without thinking about the potential down-side and you have to consider some key elements of online social networking that needs to be notice.

- It is possible that some of social networking sites can be concern over safety. Being the principle of socializing is to provide a way of meeting people in both sides of the world, and sharing information online, but unfortunately there are people who takes advantage of it. They use it in a malicious and dangerous ways. These people can go through social sites or even chat rooms particularly targeting young and people who can gain trust easily.

Safety is the most significant worry that many people have but most social sites now have safety policies and offer each member an advice about how to use their sites in a safe and comfortable way.

- One thing that is often unseen when people signing up into social sites is their major time commitment that can be required. In able to network effectively, you must put a lot of time with it. Sharing information and finding other people to communicate with. The more you sign up with different social sites, the more time is involved.

However some can offer time saving tools that can work on it more productively. Such as using automatically updating your site from a blog, this will ensure that there is regular new content on the social site.

- The reason why people join these sites is to meet new people online, whether they're looking for similar profession, or other interest, they main point here is to look for like minded individuals. The key challenge here is you should know the right social site you're going to find and you should know how to market social networks so others may know how to find you in order to make success on it.

- Technicality is also being talk about. A certain amount of knowledge about is required. Simple procedures such as uploading photos may seem very confusing to someone who uses computer infrequently. For people who need to learn these skills can be a significant challenge.

Conversely, many social sites now offers detailed help pages that can assist them with wanted ask questions.

There is no doubt that these networking sites can provide some highly significant benefits although there are some challenges that people need to consider and work on it. Addressing these challenges will help users understand the aspect of networking.

Proficiency is a deep knowledge of your business; compassion is consistently an extra advantage for your costumer. One key to success is learning to handle challenges that certainly come up. Empower yourself to learn things so you can continue to move forward to achieve your goals.

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Are you Effective in your Follow-Up System - Networking

Attending networking events is only the first step of the process of networking. It is important to attend events not to give your sale pitch to everybody you meet but to get exposure, to meet people, so you get to know them while they get to know you. You learn more about them and try to help them, so right on the spot you can show a sample of your expertise giving them some advice, instead of trying to sell them anything.

Doing so you attend various event a week and collected numbers of business cards. Now what do you do with those cards? How do you follow-up with people? Do you even follow-up with your contacts? Don't think that sending an email the next day is consider follow-up, because if you just stop there nothing will happen. Don't expect people to pick up the phone and call you just because you spoke for 5 minutes at the event and that you have a great product, because you will be very disappointed.

If you find that you forget to follow up, your 'fears' probably fall into one of these categories:

*Fear of rejection.

*Lack of confidence in themselves and or their products.

*Fear of competition.

*Expect people to call if they are interested.

*Don't know what to say.

*Don't know when to follow-up and how often.

*Don't even know what a follow-up system is.

Maybe you relate to one or more of those and the reason why you never follow-up with your contacts and permanently struggle to get new clients is hidden in those fears.

Think about this: Imagine you hiring a salesperson to sell your products. She attends 4 events a week, gets hundred of business cards a week, you think great she will get lots of clients in no time. Then your salesperson comes back to the office, sits at her deck and waits, waits, waits and waits. After a while you may ask "What are you waiting for?" and she answers "Well I met lots of people last week, so now I wait for them to call, to close the deal and make a sale." Would you pay this person to spend hours at the office waiting for the phone to ring. I don't think so. You will ask her to do her job as a salesperson and go after clients.

Now imagine that you are this salesperson for your own business, if you don't follow-up, and don't take action to communicate with people to close the deal, you are doing the exact same thing. You are wasting money on the table.

Again, making contact with a new people at networking events is just the first step. It is what you do to follow-up that will lead to make a sale, get more clients and success for your business. Having an effective follow-up system in place will help you grow your business without wondering what is the next step to connect with people.

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Wireless Networking Beyond its Age

Computers have revolutionized our lives. It has changed our lives in so many ways, most of which are good but some of which are not so good. However, the fact remains that we have come to depend immensely on this particular invention of ours. It has become almost impossible for us to lead a life without the computer playing a role in it. Some might say that we have become a slave to this invention. Whether or not that is true, the fact remains that they have made our lives much easy. It is very important to understand that though a single computer can do a number of jobs, for more complex jobs, one needs more than just one computer. These computers need to be connected together to form a network so that they will be able to interact with each other and share the resources in the most efficient manner.

So a network is basically a number of computers that are connected together in a particular fashion. Initially, when the concept of networking was introduced, cables and wires were used to connect the computers physically with one another. But thanks to the development in science and technology, one no longer needs wires or cables. Wireless networking has revolutionized the concept of networking. It has become possible to connect any number of computers to a network wirelessly. And the computers that are connected are referred to as wireless networking computers.

As already mentioned, the world is developing at a very rapid pace. Companies are constantly expanding and becoming bigger and bigger. It is no longer a great thing for a company to have several branches in different parts of the world. The reason for this lies in the fact that for a company or organization to be successful, it needs to make sure it gets the best of all resources. For this reason, going global is very important. When a company is present across different locations, it becomes necessary for people to communicate with their counterparts in other locations. There might be several occasions when people will be needed to work together on a particular project. So networking plays a very important role. And wireless networking is even more important as sometimes it becomes impossible to lay cables and wires across big areas. So wireless networking computers has come in as a boon.

There are several advantages of wireless networking. It is very easy to lay as there are no wires and cables involved. It looks very neat when there are not many wires and cables around. People need not worry about tripping and falling over wires that are in their way. Also as there are no physical connections as such, the chances of the connection getting cut are less. However, everything in this world has both good and bad. The same applies to wireless networking computers. Anyone can get access to the wireless network if he or she knows the password to the network. So while getting a wireless network established, it is very important to keep in mind the security problems that might arise. Proper precautions must be taken to ensure that the wireless network is completely secure and no one other than those authorized to use it should be allowed. Once this is taken care of, everything is fine.

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Effective Networking

The reason most folks out there are not able to maintain a workable networking is majorly because of certain factors that we shall consider here. What it really means by effective networking once again is efficient, efficacious; result oriented networking system in which the purpose of its existence is never defeated. It has been my observation that most people do not achieve the right results in networking and even in relationships generally, as a result of something in them which is blindly inherent, and cannot be quickly discovered for proper attentions.

For effective networking, the individuals involved must be ready to feel free and develop the proper sense of belonging that can help sustain a relationship. You will pitch up your tent with me that; this networking we are talking about is just like a common relationship. We all know it is important for the people in relationships to exercise certain degree of psychological freedom in terms of their thinking and how they view themselves. The same principle is also applicable here most especially when in very crucial need of workable networking system. The major problems that do not allow us to achieve this include: fear of rejection, arrogance, complacency, bad attitudes and others.

Considering the above, we can ask ourselves that; why do people nurse mostly the feeling that they will be rejected? Why is it that it is the negative that comes first? I believe it is because of the nature of such peoples' mind. I understand we live in a more or less negative environment, but we also have the needed inspiration to motivate us out of the minuses. It implies that we choose that way we live our lives; if you choose to live with fear then you may live in mediocrity for the rest of your live. Arrogance I am sure is an attribute of the confined mind; a confined mind is also a limited mind that will never see reasons to come down from his horse. Arrogance is never found in great minds.

If you are haughty, you are pretty hot on fire that will soon reduce you into the ashes of everlasting irrelevance. It is very abnormal, unusual an unnatural for a living being to be complacent. For successful networking, complacency is not welcome. This is because when you are self-complacent, you lose the motivations to yearn for more. There is something of great potentials in you that become assassinated in complacency. Bad attitudes are the worst, because you will always be at loss if you encourage such.

To start and maintain your network, you must also be committed, persistent with discipline as your watchword. Have a big self esteem, and most importantly, be able to socialize very well.

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Give Importance for Content in Social Networking Sites

Content is 100% important. Social networking is not going away because it is doing something very strong; it provides for the psychological need to socialize. That's what Web 2.0 is overall. It puts our humanness put on top of the technology. It is a way to take technology and turn it, so it is satisfying our psychological needs as humans and one of those needs is getting information.

The number one way the Internet was used when it first started, was to find information. Even now there are basically three reasons people are on the Internet. They're looking for information, relationships, and entertainment.

Relationships can be from finding a date to finding a vendor or customers. Information can be anything from how do I market my business better or lose weight to who is that actor in that movie that I can't remember. That's what people go to the Internet to look for.

Use information in your social networking content because this is what people are looking for. They are looking for information. When they are on these social networking sites they want to connect. They want to get their questions answered. They want to post questions and get resources; that's part of why they are using social networking.

By providing them with information you are giving yourself the opportunity to be showcased as an expert. This is part your visibility.

How much content do you feel you need to deliver? Let's take Twitter as an example.

- How many times do you need to Tweet pure content?

- How frequently can you intersperse a sales message or something in there?

Think of offline networking. Your content should be 10 or 15 to 1, something like that. The content needs to be vastly more than sales. Everyone will shy away from the person that's shoving their business cards and shoving a sales letters in people's hands and begging for business.

People are not on social networking sites because they want to get deluged with sales messages. They are on there because they are looking to connect, for promotion, credibility, and all of that other stuff.

You have to give them a connection before you can ask for a sale. The above ratios are helpful but you need to use your gut. Have you been promoting other people's stuff, putting up content, connecting with people enough or do you need to do more of that before you start asking for the sale?

Think of it as you're talking to somebody one-on-one. Are you at a point where you are going to be chasing people away or is making a sale the next level to the relationship?

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Networking - Media

Networking is all about building relationships...and it's no different when networking with the media. You are never trying to sell anything - you are simply getting to know the other person.

By getting to know your local media contacts in print, online, and on television and radio you can be top of mind when they're looking for an expert source in your industry for their stories.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind.

Develop a Relationship: Ask about their personal interests, family, hobbies, etc. and share your personal interests. Then let them know about your expertise in other areas so they can call you as a source for other articles.

Invite the Media: Send the media invitations and tickets to your events. If your budget can handle it invite them along to certain events as your guest or at a greatly reduced rate. Recognize that quality news media people are sensitive to being bought. Your invitation does not entitle you to cheery coverage if something goes sour.

Be Flexible: Be willing to work with the media. They may have a different concept about profiling your business than you do and go with it. They are not giving you a free advertisement - they have their audience in mind.

Tight Deadlines: Remember that reporters and editors are busy and are nearly always pressed for time. Appeal to their need to save time. Give them what they need in the form they need it. Anticipate their questions and have appropriate answers ready.
Be available, easily reached, and completely prepared for comment.

Remember the Story: Journalists need a story, not a sales pitch, so determine the best way for your company to be part of a bigger story that affects your community or the nation.

Say Thanks: When a story is written about you or your business send a hand-written note of thanks to the reporter or freelance writer and the editor. This will go along way to help you stand out from the crowd.

Keep in Touch: When you read other articles they've written, keep in touch with a note offering feedback on the story. You may be able to offer a quick suggestion for another angle at the same time.

Remember to make it easy for the media to do their job. When asked on short notice to do an interview, do everything possible to meet their deadline...they'll remember and call you when they need your expertise for the next story.

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Social Networking Future

Social networking has come a long way since the days of aol chat. Instead of the one dimensional chats that you had with a few of your friends and a few smiley's to describe your feelings, the interactions are more interactive than ever before.

Today we have Facebook and MySpace where you get customized apps on Facebook to discuss different aspects of your personalities and to share thoughts with friends, and then you can also create personalized pages on sites, such as MySpace and Squidoo.

That begs the question of where social networking is heading in the future. My thought is the following based upon what sites and tools are around right now.

1. Mobile is in and we will see that video and photo sharing are just the beginning as more and more apps that can handle what you do on your computer on your phone. The speed of mobile will continue to increase as mobile computing becomes not only an option, but the main choice for cellphones.

2. A social network for every niche, topic, profession, and hobby. Now that we have major networks, the next step is for smaller networks of like-minded people to join together on smaller networks where you will not need to search for people like you, since they will be the only ones there. That means a 50 year old business executive does not have to search through Facebook looking to network with other executives and only finding people you want to in your network.

3. The future of social networking will be different as our interaction with it will change, so we can in the future not only type our thoughts, but we will see a virtual reality version of social networking that will create a more interactive social networking experience.

The future of social networking will promise new technologies that will enhance our ability to connect with who we want, when we want, and how we want.

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Squidoo

Launched in 2005 by Seth Godin with headquarters situated in New York, Squidoo is a community website which enables its users to create html pages without knowing HTML on their subjects of interest. These pages are called lenses. Success can be contributed to the fact that it is in the top 500 most visited sites in the world and among the top 300 most visited sites in America. Squidoo grew at a phenomenal pace in 2008 by 91% and last year it had around 1 million lenses.

As per Godin's eBook "Everyone's An Expert", he says that by lens he means filtering and showing what we actually want to see. These lenses are much like blog posts.

Squidoo can really provide a platform to market yourself or your business not just because of the reach but for other powerful reasons. Squidoo looks really neat in its appearance. These lenses are placed into niche categories so you could really pinpoint someones area of expertise allowing for easier search and find capabilities. Hence, this works like a lens as whatever you write has to be specifically related to that particular area of expertise.

Suppose a company wants to popularise its campaign about saving paper and is planning to launch a new product, say notebooks, they can create a lens on Squidoo and spread the word about how cutting trees for paper is harmful for our environment. Then when planning to launch a product they can have views from other people as to whether or not they should come up with such a product. Hence in this way companies will be able to test its product before launching it on the market. All these sites provide an elite audience who can really think and can give you critical reviews.

Today more and more companies are going global and using these networking sites to spread their messages and viral marketing campaigns. Squidoo can prove to be a really good marketing research tool as companies through their artfully made lenses can reach a much wider audience. A company can conduct market research through Squidoo where they can ask the questions to the people who follow their lense and create reports based on that feedback. Squidoo like other networking sites exposes you to a large audience at very low cost and in very little time. It helps in building customer relationships while providing your company or project greater flexibility. It provides businesses with easy access to global markets.

As more and more companies are going global and following such marketing tools there is a new scenario which has came into the picture that is called information overload. This refers to the fact that more and more people are having the same sort of information hence with its unique way of making lenses on a particular area Squidoo can really provide breakthrough information to people who want to connect to their audience and have a unique place in their mind and heart. Today more and more companies are using these networking sites to spread their message and easily reach a broader audience than they were ever able to do before.

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Online Social Networking

Back in the "old days", people networked or communicated in the following ways:

1. Meeting people face to face
2. Writing letters, i.e. Pen Pals
3. Telephone calls

As we have now entered the Information Age, it is now easier more than ever to network with others. As a result, online social networking has opened doors that did not previously exist.

With the presence of Internet social network sites like Facebook, PeopleString, and MySpace, one can communicate with friends and family by email or by downloading videos and photos. Online networking has made it possible for people to communicate with each other across the country as well as around the world-where they would otherwise never have the opportunity to connect.

As social networking becomes more and more popular among people and businesses alike, new social websites will emerge, bringing thousands of people together for a variety of purposes, such as:

1. Career advancement-finding jobs
2. Dating-finding a suitable mate for a long lasting relationship
3. Forming groups or clubs that share a common interest
4. Announcing or broadcasting important events
5. Maintaining contact with friends and family who live far away

Online networking also provides low cost or free advertising for businesses. This explains why many businesses now have either fan pages on websites like Facebook or a Twitter account. Business owners in general now realize the ability of social websites to reach millions of people. As an added incentive, many of these business fan clubs give their fans special discounts or savings that they otherwise would not receive.

Whether you love or hate social networking or have no opinion about it at all, online networking is here to stay, and it can be extremely beneficial to anyone who uses it. To really take advantage of online networking, I suggest that people join as many of these sites as possible so that you can contact lots of people to develop long-term relationships. Social networking is something that should be embraced rather than feared.

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Networking tips for small Businesses & Soloists on a Budget

Simple ideas that work perfectly for small businesses and soloists on a budget. Marketing does not have to be rocket science and does not have to be expensive to work successfully for you!

1. Create alliances within your circle of influence

Amongst the peers you trust, foster relationships to refer and receive referrals. Work together on joint ventures to expand your opportunities. Create newsletters together to double, treble, quadruple your database of potential clients. Share advertising opportunities together, expo stands etc if you have like minded products suitable for clients in the same buying cycle

2. Network to grow your business

Don't shy away from networking opportunities, make the effort to represent your business and watch the synchronous doors open. Be passionate about your business and sum it up very briefly with a hook of "what it is in for the listener". Rather than say you are a web designer, say "I create generating income websites that work while you sleep". Far more interesting to the listener and more likely to be a conversation starter.

3. A user friendly website is your best silent salesman

When did you last click through the links on your website? Is your site easy to navigate, is it up to date and is it search engine optimised. What year is noted at the very bottom of your template? Are your contact details visible on every page? Is there a call to action on every page? Is there a way to collect email addresses from site visitors respectfully? Can you read your web diagnostics, if not ask your administrator how so that you can take advantage of the marketing opportunities tracked behind your website.

4. Find ways to thank your clients

The great advantage of small businesses is the personal relationship you develop with your clients. Be unique and think of creative ways to thank your clients. Small and personal is generally really appreciated, don't try to compete on dollar terms with big business. For example, invite a client to attend a seminar, breakfast, information session, networking event with you.

5. Adopt the give not get policy

What can you do for a prospective client or existing client without expecting anything in return? Can you network two clients who will benefit from this business connection? It costs you nothing to connect people and making introductions that will benefit both their businesses means both parties will be grateful you thought of them. This is a win-win for everyone.

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