Remote Networking Tips #14: Connect with People you know on Social Media
Once you have updated your Online Profiles, it is important to also reach out and connect with people that you know. Connect with people in your industry as well as people you have previously worked with and people in your wider networking circle. Transfer your real-life connections into virtual ones.
Use LinkedIn to connect with your professional network and find people in your wider networking circle, such as former colleagues, and people you went to university with etc. It can also be used to connect with people you have met at networking events etc so that you can continue building a relationship with them.
You can ask someone to join your network on LinkedIn by sending them an “invitation” to connect. If they accept your invitation, they’ll become a “1st-degree connection”. You can invite people to connect from their profile, search results, using their email address, and the people you may know page. We recommend that you personalise your invite and take the opportunity to re-introduce yourself. It can also be a prompt for you when you look back to remind yourself how you met someone.
As well as connecting with others you can also “follow” LinkedIn Users. This is great for following Thought leaders in your industry or even within your own company if you don’t know them personally, as this will help you read all of their content and keep up to date with what they are doing.
Unlike LinkedIn, you can connect with most Twitter users without having to wait for them to accept. You can just follow them and start reading their content. Look up both people you know in real life, but also take the opportunity to be aspirational and follow people within your industry that you are interested in, your role models and publications or news channels that you enjoy as well.
If you use LinkedIn you can also check to see if your connections have a linked Twitter account and add them on twitter as well.
I personally reserve Facebook for personal connections and friends. However, if you use Facebook for business you might also want to connect with people on Facebook that you actively engage with, for example as part of a Facebook group.
Instagram is perfect for creatives, but it can also be used to create a professional account to develop your online network and presence. It is important that you follow accounts with similar goals or work in the same industry as well as known thought leaders and leaders that are using the platform and are well known on the platform. However, depending on what you do, Instagram can be tricker to build a “professional” network.
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