Social Networking | Startup Addict

Importance of Networking

April 17, 2010 By Tod Whipple 2 Comments

The importance of networking should be in the forefront of your mind in today’s market. People who networked effectively in the pre-recession economy are finding themselves spending less time unemployed than their non-networking counterparts in the current business climate. Entrepreneurs and former employees that attended networking events and focused on growing their Rolodex are reaping the rewards of referrals and opportunities.

Networking doesn’t have to be as nebulous as it sounds and the importance of creating a networking game-plan for yourself is paramount. Hopefully, the following tips will give you a head start at your next important networking event.

1. Get your personalized 11-sec elevator pitch ready. Anticipate popular or likely questions that will be asked at a networking event. You should a mini sales pitch already prepared about you and your company without sounding too pretentious.

2. Listen more than you speak. How many times at a networking event have you forgotten a person’s name on the initial introduction. You were probably worried about what you were going to say next than really listening to the introduction or what the person had to say. In addition, if you actually listen to the person you can quickly determine if he/she is a worthwhile contact or if you should continue networking the room.

3. Get your ice breakers ready.Easing the tension and the inevitable awkwardness will go a long way to the effectiveness of an introduction. Save the cheesy jokes, but have a sense a humor and a strong handle on current events of than weather. Keeping a comfort level in the conversation will make you memorable.

4. Referrals. The whole point in networking is to get the word out about your products and services. Networking successfully will build useful contacts that will turn into referrals for your business. Don’t be afraid to set definitive goals for yourself before an event. Promise yourself you will obtain at least five referrals from an event. Before you now it you’ll have new business and paid for the price of admission to the networking event.

5. Follow-up. also known as bridging. I have personally agonized over finding a workflow between what transpires at networking events, conferences and etc… and the follow up after the event. Good CRM software as well as good old fashion follow up phone calls and emails will turn an introduction into a vendor or customer.

6. Networking online and off. Don’t forget the power of Facebook and Linkedin for keeping in touch with your existing Rolodex as well as expanding new connections.

Filed Under: Social Networking Tagged With: networking, rolodex, Social Networking

Google Friend Connect launches

May 13, 2008 By Tod Whipple Leave a Comment

Google’s Friend connect has launched and gives web site owners the ability to add social features (within an iframe) to their existing websites. The code is a a cut and paste scenario and is not much more difficult then pasting adsense code.

I have to hand it to Google, they continue to create feature rich services that possess consistent UIs (user interface) and dead simple to implement. Friend Connect has a standard sign in and import feature from several social networks like Facebook and of course Orkut.

What is really interesting is that Google used the publicly available Facebook API because Facebook is not part of the open social movement. Friend Connect shows the power of data portability through the use of API’s and open standards.The pre-release of Friend Connect has internal or core social features developed by Google like rating system, friend import etc… users will have the ability to add any application developed for open social by external developers as well.

As far a privacy issues go…..well that continues to be an evolving battle. Google will have the ability to aggregate social information on users much the same way Google has gathered information regarding your website. After all Google is in the advertising business and gathering information is the honey for the advertising bees.

I will be implementing Friend Connect for StartupAddict.com as soon as Google lets me. For those of you new to this blog, StartupAddict.com is a vertical social network for entrepreneurs and startups launched last year. The site is built on open source Drupal and I feel Google Friend connect will add additional dynamic social information to the startup network. More importantly it will allow the existing and new user base to import friends and interact very easily enhancing site growth and eliminating the need for my developers to create drupal modules to facilitate this functionality.

I’m very excited about friend connect and how it will advance the social graph and interoperability among multiple social networks.

Additional coverage on Google Friend Connect:

Yahoo News

Venture Beat – Google Friend Connect

ReadWriteWeb

Filed Under: Social Networking