Expanding Your Network
3. Expanding Your Network Strategy
The goal for expanding your network is to find the best people possible to help with your job search. Best people can mean a number of different things:
- Best people who direct you to a job
- Best people who are looking for candidates like you
- Best people who invite you to contact others who can help you
- Best people who help and support your job search
- Best people who provide you with information about jobs or companies
- Best people who put you in contact with the right people
Before I show you the many wonderful ways Linkedin helps you expand your network, let me share with you an article I wrote recently about the real benefits of the Linkedin network. It will give you new insights about networking.
What is the real Power of Networking?
Some might say the power of networking is in its low cost. True, its one of the cheapest forms of marketing. Others would say that word of mouth advertising is networking’s greatest power. True, word of mouth advertising is your most effective form of advertising. Others would suggest that the exposure your business gets from networking is the real power. True, business exposure is good.
The real power of networking is not who you know but who they know. Let’s look at this power.
Your 250 Contacts
Experts tell us that each of us knows about 250 people. What happens once we contact these 250 people? Where to we go from there?
Each of these people we know also knows 250 people. If each of these people we know introduced us to 5 of their contacts and each of those contacts introduced us to just five of their friends or contacts? Well, you can do the math. Your network has increased exponentially.
Space and time limit our networking abilities. Now, let’s look at how digital networking eliminates these limitations.
I will use Linkedin as an example of second and third degree networking. (Face Book and Twitter have specific applications that will allow you to do the same thing). When you go to your Linkedin page, you see your first level of contacts. These are the people you are directly connected with through Linkedin. Then you can click on any one of their profiles and see who they are connected with. Then you can click on any one of their connections to see a third level of connections.
Linkedin tells me that with my 70 connections I have potential contact with 1.4 million connections. They also tell me on my page that the new connections I added last month has increased my overall connections by 3,000.
Digital networking overcomes the time and space limitations of physical networking and now allows us to see well beyond our immediate contact list. Do you see how this can opens up new possibilities for your small business?
Conclusion
It’s not who you know but who they know that is the secret of digital networking. To fully utilize social networking programs, go beyond your first level of contacts and explore the second and third degrees of contacts that are just waiting for you to tap into them. The Small Business Tool Box May 2009
To be continued, your comments are welcomed…
Al Hanzal
