LinkedIn Today: How to use it

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Nicky Kriel

Did you know that LinkedIn makes it easy to find articles and news that are relevant to you? In fact, they present it to you on a plate.

Have you noticed the LinkedIn Today on your Home Page? Are you using LinkedIn Today to help you?

What is LinkedIn Today?

Just below your update box, you have the top articles that are currently being read and shared on LinkedIn within your industry and among your peers.

LinkedIn will look at:

the industry that you are in
who you are connected to
how often articles are been shared, liked or commented on
which recent articles your direct connection have shared

How to use LinkedIn Today

Tailor your LinkedIn Today

The first step is to make sure that headlines you get, are tailor-made for you.

By clicking on the “See all Top Headlines for You” this is what you see:

By clicking on the “See all” for either the Top Sources or Suggested industries, this is what you’ll see:

You can choose which sources and industries are relevant to you specifically by clicking the Follow button.

Read the Headlines

It is a very easy way to keep up to speed with what is happening in your industry. It is worth creating a daily habit for yourself. Even if it is just read one article a day!

Comment on the article

Very few people leave comments on articles and there is a very good reason why you should consider doing it.

It’s an opportunity to form a relationship with the author
It’s an opportunity to show that you are a thought leader (although you have to say more than “Nice post”!) A thoughtful considered response is ideal if you have the time.
Other people can read your comment so it increases your online visibility
Most comments you leave require a website address. This creates a backlink to your website
Each comment can be found by search engines. It gives people who are searching for your name, a more rounded view of you.

Caution: Be aware that if you write a ranting comment on someone’s post it will reflect badly on you.

Share the article

Share the post you have read on LinkedIn, adding a comment to your update.

By sharing good quality content, you get associated with the content.
You don’t have to write everything yourself.
People appreciate people who share good sources of news.
It is an easy way to update your LinkedIn Profile
Which in turn gives you better visibility on LinkedIn

Simple really, isn’t it? Let me know if you have been using LinkedIn Today by leaving a comment below.

Nicky Kriel

Nicky Kriel is a Social Media Coach & Trainer inspiring, educating and empowering Business Owners to use Social Media more strategically. She is also the author of How to Twitter for Business Success. For more information visit http://www.nickykriel.com or to find out about her courses that she runs in Guildford visit http://www.nickykriel.com/courses

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Twitter Backgrounds: Are they worth it?

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Nicky Kriel

I had a bit of a debate last week, I was being interviewed about Twitter and I was asked to explain why Twitter backgrounds were important to small businesses. My answer surprised my interviewer when I said: They weren’t!

Yes, you DO want consistent branding, BUT how often are Twitter backgrounds ever viewed?

43% of Tweets come from mobile devices and you can’t see Twitter backgrounds on a mobile device
If you used Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to manage your Twitter, you can’t see the backgrounds
Even if you use Twitter.com predominately, all you see are people’s avatars and Twitter names. If you click on their names, you see their bios and the last 3 tweets. To see their background, you would need to click on their Twitter name again.
The only time I ever look at someone’s background is when I check on whether to follow them back or not. Most of my decisions are based solely on their bio and their last three Tweets. If I am still not sure I will then click to see more of their Tweets, but too be honest, I look at the content not the imagery at that point.
You see the Twitter background when you follow people from their website So there is a brief chance to look at the background before you follow someone.

So how often do you look at someone’s background image? Do you dismiss people if they don’t have a professional background?

I have a confession: I have a standard Twitter background, when I joined Twitter a couple of years ago, I was told it was very important to have a customised background. I played around with a few backgrounds and even had a go at designing one for myself and then Twitter changed its format and…

…I meant to come back to it later…

…but I have been too busy Tweeting!

Over four thousand people have chosen to follow me despite my background. So do you think its time for me to have a properly designed Twitter Background?

Please let me know by voting or leaving a comment below.

Nicky Kriel

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10 Facebook Changes that impact Business Pages

Posted on October 9, 2011 by Nicky Kriel

Facebook has been making major changes to it’s Profile and a few subtle changes to it’s Pages. I expect Facebook will be bringing the new Timeline to Business Pages which is great news for Business owners because

it will allow better branding (You will have a big banner on the top of your Page)
all the content will be easier to find

But, at the moment the Timeline hasn’t rolled out to all Profiles yet, so it will be a while before it happens.

Some things have changed:

1. You can no longer send Updates to all your Fans

To be honest the updates went into an “other messages” box which I doubt that most Facebook users know exists, so I don’t think it will actually make a difference. Did you know that you had an “other” message box?

The only way you can find the “Other” Messages is by clicking on your messages (either the icon at the top or the word “messages” in the sidebar). In effect, your updates to your Fans were caught in a spam filter.

I have read that some Pages have had a message icon appearing which means Facebook may be testing the ability to send or receive messages between you and the people who have liked your Page. It will be interesting to see what happens here.

2. Apps require SSL

If you haven’t customised your Facebook Page with apps, this doesn’t affect you and you don’t have to read any further and you can skip to the next change.

If you have customised your Facebook Page, the clearest explanatation I could find came from Mari Smith who says:

“What that means in plain English is when Facebook users browse the site on a secure connection (HTTPS://) if your own custom images/videos on your Welcome tab are not hosted on a secure server, then that content simply won’t be displayed, and visitors/fans will see a message *on that tab* stating the content is not supported. Everything else on your fan page will still be completely visible, and everyone can still see and engage with your posts.

To get an SSL, a) contact your website hosting company, or b) use an app like TabSite.com that has an SSL, c) or if your fan page designer hosts your images ask if they have an SSL, or d) get an account on Amazon S3 to host your media.”

3. Likes are no longer required for people to leave comments

The implication of this is very important to you. When people click on the “like” button they will get your Page’s posts in their News Feed which mean they automatically subscribed to your Page. Now anyone who comes to your Page can interact with it without having to subscribe to it first. What this means is that you will need to work on building engagement on your Page. The number of people who have “liked” your Page will become less important than the interactions on the Page.

4. You no longer need 25 likes to get a vanity URL or unique username

You used to need 25 people to like your Page before you could claim your unique username, but now it is no longer a requirement. If you have NOT claimed your unique username, click on “Edit your Page” and select “Basic Information” and follow the instructions for Username.

Note: You cannot change your unique Username once you have chosen it.

5. Ticker and Top News Opportunity

Your Page is more visible to the Friends of people who have liked your Page because each time they comment or like a post, it becomes visible on their friends’ Tickers. This means that the more activity (likes and comments) on your Page, the more visible it is. Even more reason to focus on building engagement on your Page. If your posts gets a lot of comments and likes, it will be featured in the Top News stories of your fans which means more visibility for your Page.

6. Larger photos

Photographs have been enlarged in line with Facebook Profiles which means that they are more noticeable.and more dominant. Have you thought about what photographs you could use? The pictures don’t have to be formal and most phones have a camera on them which means all you have to do is to: Remember to take pictures!

7. New Analytics will go into more depth

The insight are going to be more useful than ever before. They haven’t gone live on my Pages yet, but here is a great article which tell you all about it Facebook completely overhaul insights by Simple Zesty. There is no excuse for not measuring your Facebook Page’s performance because Facebook does it all for you, but it is up to you to familiarise yourself with the analytics and tweak your activities to make your Page work for your business.

Top right of your Page!

8. Are talking about this

A few people have already asked me about this. You may have noticed below the number of “Likes” on your Page there is another number with “are talking about this”. This number is the actual number of people who have interacted with your Page in the last 7 days. This is a very useful number to keep your eye on. If 1000 have liked your page, but only your mother and your best friend are liking or commenting on posts on your Page, you seriously need to do something different!! Your goal should be to grow the number of people talking about this each week.

9. Shares are Visible

This is a very useful addition which you may not have noticed. You can now see who has shared your posts. This is a post that I posted an hour ago, so far it has one share. By clicking on the view shares, you can see who has shared the post.

10. Discussions are going

On the 31st of October, the Discussions Tab is going. I have had a look at the Discussions that I set up on my Pages and there is very little interaction on any of them. There was no notification if anyone responded to the discussion, so I won’t be mourning the passing of the discussions tab. Facebook are encouraging Page owners to post discussions to their Page walls to get better engagement and visibility. Have you used the Discussions Tab?

These are the changes that I have noticed. Have you noticed any others? Please share your comments about the changes with us.

11. The Review tab will be going too

I knew that I would leave at least one out. Thank you to Sharon Howard and Ruth Sheba for bring this one to my attention.

The Review tab will also be disappearing on the 31st October. Facebook say, “The best way to encourage conversation and feedback is through posts and comments on your wall.” Facebook are working on tools to help you moderate, filter and manage content in one powerful place. If the Timeline is introduced, you may be able to feature reviews prominantly. For now, I would recommend

Archive your reviews
Screen capture each review using a tool like Snipping Tool or Jing, so that you can use it in your marketing literature or on your website.
Encourage your reviewers to give the same review on your wall.

I hope this helps you. Let me know.

Nicky Kriel

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Google+ from a non-techie viewpoint

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Nicky Kriel

For the first time ever, I have become an early adopter. I have a Google+ account! I managed to get an invite while access is very restricted. You may be wondering what Google+ or Googleplus is. Well Google have just launched Google+ as their version of a Social Media platform in the last few days. The best description I have heard about it is: It is not Facebook, but it is like Facebook.

So what do I think?

Well, I think, the best way to describe it is, it is like being invited to a show house that is very modern in design and everyone is ooohing and aaahing about the architecture of it and commenting about the sky lights and the design and I am wondering whether it could ever feel like home and would my furniture fit in here?

Aspects I like

Circles

I like the name, it fits perfectly with how we think of groups of people we know. It is very intuitive and fun way to put people literally into circles. It is a built in feature so you group people from the start rather than later, when your drowning in updates.

You can put people your Facebook Friends into groups, but it is not obvious and most people I work with are unaware that you can do it. Twitter allows you to manage your news stream by putting people into lists, but again it is not an obvious! But, what happens when you have more circles than can fit on a page or friends in a circle that become too small to see?

I haven’t yet been able to work out the etiquette: if someone you don’t know puts you in their circle, is that okay? Google+ seems to be a blend of Facebook and Twitter. Facebook operates on a reciprocal relationship: You both have to agree to be friends. Twitter operates on a non reciprocal basis: Anyone can follow you and you can follow anyone, it doesn’t have to be mutual. I think that Google+ is more like Twitter in this way, but is marketing the circles concept as about friendship.

Huddles

It is a wonderful concept, it makes it very easy to have virtual get togethers and groups can watch videos together and comment about it. Immediately exciting to me because as a coaching or training tool this could be really brilliant! I want to have an explore, but…where are my friends to have a play around with it. They are on Facebook or Twitter. They can’t get into Googleplus at the moment and are they going to come aboard, anyway?

And wait… I heard on the grapevine….Facebook are announcing their launch of a video meeting room in the next few days. If Facebook can offer a similiar thing and all my friends are there anyway, which one do you think I would choose? Even if the technology isn’t as good.

Sparks

I like the idea behind that you can find articles that interest you all in one place, think as the platform grows this will become a big feature. In some ways it is a lot like LinkedIn Today!

Big Concerns

At the moment the new house does not have any locked doors. You can look up absolutely anyone and see their profile and their posts. If you are on Google+ try it out. Type some random name, select someone you know absolutely nothing about and see how much information you can find out about them! Even if you block someone, they can see your profile and your posts, by searching for your name.

At the moment you can share posts to particular circles, but there is nothing to stop one of your circle to share the information with everyone on Googleplus. I know it is something that they are working on, but at the moment, don’t post anything that you don’t mind the world seeing.

Questions

Do I feel the need for a Social Media Platform? No, but then again, I am the type of person who grumbles when they change the shelf layout at my local supermarket.

Do I feel that Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are not performing for me? No, I am having fun and getting great results for my business.

Do I have the time as a business owner to spread myself across, yet another platform? No, but if it becomes popular, I will make the time.

Will I be part of the Google+ community? I don’t know. At the moment I am there out of curiousity. As a Social Media Coach and Trainer, I will be keeping a close eye on it. But, unless it starts getting populated in a big way with people I really care about, I don’t think so, not yet. Most of my friends and the businesses owners I work with trail behind in adopting technology. Joining Facebook and Twitter is still a big thing for them.

Ultimately, I am a sociable person. I prefer to hangout with my friends.

Have you tried it yet? If you are on it, I will add you to one of my circles. If you want an invite, let me know your gmail or googlemail address and I’ll invite you!

Nicky Kriel

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How to get a Facebook Place for your local business

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Nicky Kriel

Do you have a physical location for your business? Do you have customers visiting your business? Do you have a shop or an office or restaurant? Do you know that you could be generating free publicity for your business? Have you started to use Facebook Places yet?

How Facebook Places works

Very simply anyone with a smartphone can check into your location using Facebook Places. This will send an update to their newsfeed so that all their friends can see where they have checked in. If you want to see what Facebook says about places, click here.

Why you should be interested

There are over 250 million people who use Facebook from their mobile device and they tend to be twice as active as people using their computers.
The average Facebook user has 130 friends which means that potentially quite a few people will see that your Business is being visited
People may be checking into your location without you knowing about it.
Great way to encourage people to visit you
Free way to create buzz and excitement around your venue
Easy way to reward existing customers.

How to get a Facebook Place Page

Find out first if you have a Place Page already – Enter your business name in the Facebook Search box and click on the magnifying glass icon.

You may find that your business already has a Place Page which is because

Any Business page that was set up as a local business with an address will have been changed to a Place Page

You can tell that your Page is a Place Page because there will be an Place icon in the left hand column and it will show if any people have checked in. When you go to your information page, you will see the Bing Map pin pointing your location.

Someone may have checked into your location already and then you would have an unclaimed Place Page which looks like this (see below). Wouldn’t you rather have your branding on it?

No logo
Bing Map prominant
Other local places (in this case unclaimed as well)
If this is your business, click here to claim it. You will be asked to verify that it is your Business.
If your business appears a number of times as places click on the “report this page” and choose the “duplicate of another place” option.

What happens if you don’t have a Place?

To create a new place, follow these steps:

Access the Places application on your Mobile.
Click “Check In.”
Click the “Add” button to the left of the Places Names search box.
Enter a name for the new Place as well as an optional description of it. Then, click the “Add” button at the bottom right of the page.
Click the “Check In” button to share your visit.

Check In Deals are available to all businesses in the US and to business that are working directly with a Facebook representative in the UK, Canada, Spain, Italy, Germany or France. They will be rolled out to everyone in time. I will cover check in deals in a separate blog post. In the meantime…..

Encourage your customers to check in to your venue. I am sure you can come up with something creative!
Educate your staff about asking people to check into your Facebook Place and let them know about deals.
Get in the habit of checking into your venue and encourage your staff to do the same

Let me know if you found this useful?

Nicky Kriel

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LinkedIn: Using Advanced Search for Research

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Nicky Kriel

Are you making the most out of the search function of LinkedIn? How much research do you do using LinkedIn? When I was researching for my previous article called LinkedIn: Are you using the search function?, I came across an interesting article written in 2007 called 5 Tips on How to Search LinkedIn Like a Pro. It talked about something called Boolean Search. Now before your eyes start glazing over because I am going to talk about something called Logic, take a deep breath, there is a reason for me doing this.

Computers and databases are based on Logic
LinkedIn Search and other searches on the internet use Logic to get results
Understanding a tiny bit about Logic will help you get better search results.
If you understand how search works, you will start to understand how YOU can be found
By learning how search for keywords works, you can get more savvy about the keywords you use.

There is no point being fabulous if nobody can find you!

Boolean Search in a Nutshell

Boolean Logic refers to the logical relationship between search terms.

There are 3 main ones and they are:

AND
OR
AND NOT

Remember Venn Diagrams?

You have two groups of People;

let’s call one group A and the other group B,

some people will be a member of both groups and those are called C.

So using a personal example, I have friends who are Toastmasters (A) and I have friends who are NLP Practitioners (B). Some of my friends are both Toastmasters and NLP Practitioners (C).

When you use “AND” to search you find the terms that are both of the terms. So ”AND” finds the intersecting group (C).
When you use “OR” you will get everyone who fits into either of the two groups. So the term “OR” will find everyone who fits into A and B groups. So in my example it will be all my friends who are Toastmasters and NLP practitioners
The term “AND NOT” will exclude one group so if I wanted to find all my friends who are Toastmasters, but want to exclude all the people who are NLP Practitioners, I would get A without the C part.

One more useful search tool to know about:

“Quotation marks”

If you are looking for an exact term that people might use to describe what they do, put the term in quotation marks and the search will look for that exact term. For example, if I am looking for business development consultants, I would use “business development consultants” then only the people using that exact term will be found.

Use LinkedIn’s Advanced Search Function
Each box you fill in creates an “AND” So the search will look for results that match both criteria.
Within each box you can use “AND” ,”OR”, “AND NOT” and put terms in quotation marks.

LinkedIn is a giant database which holds 100 million professional business people’s data.

All the information about these business have been put on the database in a very systematic way.

When you entered your information, you entered information under headings, didn’t you?

Each of these fields can be searched.

Learning how to search properly will help you find customers or business partners. If you want to learn more about Advanced Search on LinkedIn, visit their Learning Centre Page.

Why cold call when you can connect with people directly on LinkedIn? There is a wealth of information on LinkedIn that can be incredibly useful to your business.

Action Point: Spend some time doing research to find the right people for your business.

LinkedIn relies on Keyword searches to find people. What keywords do you have in your profile to help the right person find you?

Action Point: Think about what terms your ideal customer would use to find you and make sure that you use them in your profile.

Let me know if you found this useful by leaving a comment below, thank you.

Nicky Kriel

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Facebook: Why you should put your friends into lists

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Nicky Kriel

Are you categorising your Facebook Friends?

Did you know that you could put your Facebook friends into lists? You may be wondering why you should go to the bother of listing people. If you look through your friends on Facebook:

Do you have family members and close friends?
Do you have people that you may want to do business with in the future?
Do you have people you have met networking?
Do you have people on your list that you have never met?

If you use your Profile for a mixture of Personal and Professional, like many people, think about the following questions:

Do you want business contacts to know that you are Farmville/Frontierville addict or the answers to the fun quiz you have answered?
Do you want your close friends and family to receive every business related post you do?
You may want to share your holiday photos with your family and close friends, but do you want complete strangers to look at them?

Personally, I like to let business conacts see that I am a human being and I think it’s good to let friends and family know what you up to in business…

But…

There will be occassions when you want to separate your Facebook Friends into separate categories. It is easier to do sooner rather than later when you have more friends.

How do you create a List?

Go to your Friends Page

Click on the Edit Friends button and you will see this.

Click on the “Create a list” to get started. Once you have created lists they will appear in the left hand column of the page. Simple, isn’t it?

Once you have put your friends into lists, you may want to set your privacy setting on your photo albums and on some of your posts. (I covered the how to customise your posts in Facebook Profiles: Personal, Professional or Private?) It makes it easier in the long run.

Let me know if you found this useful.

Nicky Kriel

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LinkedIn vs Twitter: Do you know the difference?

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Nicky Kriel

Do you approach all Social Media Platforms in the same way? Do you automatically post the same content to various sites? Do you know that LinkedIn and Twitter need to be approached differently?

I posed the question on LinkedIn and Twitter and was amazed about how many responses I received and the differences in viewpoints. There many differences, but I thought I would highlight five differences that business owners should be aware of.

Formality

On LinkedIn, you are always in business mode and on Twitter, you are a person who does business. When you use LinkedIn, think of it as wearing a suit and tie. What would you say in a board room or a presentation to a new prospect? Everything is about business. Twitter is like going to a familiar networking event where you know a lot of people. You are aware that you are a business person, but you show your human side, you connect with people on a personal and emotional level. So it is good to bring up the weather, family and sports because you want to find people who are like you. It is about social dialogue.

Nobody on LinkedIn wants to hear what you are eating, whereas, people on Twitter love talking about food. In fact, my tweet on macaroni cheese recently, had far more interaction and engagement than anything else I had spoken about that day. Yet, all the people I was interacting with were business people.

Action Point: Do not feed your Tweets into LinkedIn automatically unless every single one of your Tweets is about business. If every single one of your Tweets is business, then is Twitter the right place for you?

Professionalism vs. Likeability

LinkedIn is all about professionalism. You show this through providing your experience and skills for anyone to read. You connecting with other business people and show your expertise by answering questions relevant to your industry. Everything is available in one place.

Twitter is all about letting people see who you are so that they know, like and trust you. Your personality comes out in less than 140 characters. People get a flavour of not only of your expertise, but also how you interact with other people. You let people sample before they buy. For people to get a full picture, they need to go off site to your website or your blog. People get an impression of what you are like over time.

Action Point: Make sure your profile is 100% filled in on LinkedIn, you may only get one chance for someone to look at your expertise. On Twitter, remember that you are a business person and what you say also reflects on your business. Do not Tweet drunk!

Expansion vs. Brevity

Twitter allows you to say things in 140 characters or less. This leads to abbreviations and jargon and shortened links. The benefit of it is that people can be very succinct and witty in a sentence. I chuckle away to myself reading some tweets. The disadvantage is that it is easy to be misunderstood and it is not long enough to expand on what you mean. To get into detail, you need to produce a blog article, get someone to call you or email further information. LinkedIn allows you to elaborate on points and it is easy to expand on what you mean sending messages, but there is an art to the short form. I have had essays as responses to some of the questions I asked in groups.

Action Point: Craft your Tweets so they get your message across clearly. On LinkedIn, remember, just because you have the space to expand doesn’t mean that you should be verbose.

Continuity vs. Immediacy:

Although Tweets are permanently searchable, they are only visible for a moment in time; it is hard to track back to conversations if you have a busy stream. They need to be repeated to allow for their short lifespan. LinkedIn status updates, group discussion and internal messaging makes it easier to elaborate and it can be easily referred back to. An illustration of this is I asked the same question on Twitter and LinkedIn. After about an hour nobody answered the Twitter question, yet I am still getting answer on the LinkedIn question twenty- four hours later. I have all the answers to all the questions I have asked on LinkedIn.

Action Point: For immediate feedback Twitter is brilliant, but for longevity LinkedIn wins. However, don’t underestimate how long people will remember a funny or punchy tweet!

Relationship building

Twitter makes contacting anyone very accessible. You can build up relationships very quickly and if you are being authentic, those relationships will build into real life conversations and working relationships. LinkedIn is more formal, you have to know the person to connect with them, be a member of the same group or ask someone for an introduction. On Twitter you can follow anyone you want. The one advantage LinkedIn has over Twitter is that you can own your contact database; you can download it and keep it.

Action point: Both sites are good for building relationship, but you won’t build any if you are not proactive about following or connecting with people in the first place and then starting a dialogue with them.

I would love to have your comments about these differences. Do you agree or disagree with me?

Nicky Kriel

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5 Ways to overcome Networking Nerves for Novices

Posted on October 6, 2010 by Nicky Kriel

You have set up your own business. Your idea is going to conquer the world! You spent ages deliberating over your business plan, decided your price, product or service and how you were going to brand it. You designed your business cards, letterheads and logo, printed off leaflets. You thought you were all ready to go, but there is one key ingredient missing: Customers!

Now you can sit and wait for the phone to start ringing from the Yellow Page advert you placed or the expensive online directory or wait for people to respond from the direct mailing and the email you have sent out. You can rearrange your office furniture, organise your stationary, write up to do lists…

OR…

you can get out there and meet people.

There are a number of good reasons to network when you are starting up your business.

You need to increase the number of people you know, so that more people know that you are out there
You may meet potential customers or someone who knows your ideal client.
But more importantly you might meet someone who can help you.

The quickest way to become more business-like is to spend time with business people. Remember you don’t have to get it right the first time. You don’t have to know all the answers. I learnt so much by the questions that stumped me initially when I started networking. I have also gained so much from the friendships and free advice that I have been given.

So here are 5 ways to overcome any nerves you may have about networking.

Remember the people you meet networking are just people, they have families and lives outside their business. They have good and bad days too. Don’t put people on pedestals! There is a person behind the attire. Networking is about getting to know people that you like and trust.
Be prepared for the meeting. Each networking meeting is slightly different. It is a good idea to find out the format of the meeting. Email or phone the Group Leader to get more details and visit the networking group’s website before you go. Make sure you have your business cards and literature with you. Double-check the timing and the location of the meeting.
Prepare a short introduction to yourself- There is a good chance that you will be called upon to tell the group a bit about yourself. You may have as little as 40 seconds to do it. It doesn’t have to be perfect the first time you do it. You will learn from other people, but it is worth working out a script for yourself, starting and ending with your name and business name. If you think you will be very nervous, write it down. Practise saying it out aloud and time it. If you have only a minute, make sure what you have to say is under a minute.
Breathe – It may sound obvious, but before you enter and networking event, it is worth stopping before you go in and take a deep breath! Notice where your feet are and how they feel in your shoes (very simple technique to ground yourself and bring yourself back into the present!) Take another breath, stand tall and put a smile on your face, then enter.
Remember that not all networking groups will suit you. You want to belong to a group that welcomes you and makes you feel comfortable. Your first networking experience is not how all networking experiences are. It is worth trying out a few to see which ones suit your personality best. Don’t let one bad experience put you off. You will get pushy people who shove their card in your hand and bombard you with a sales pitch before they have even asked you who you are, but not everyone is like that. Some people feel better within a structured environment and some people enjoy just mingling.

I belong to 4Networking because I like the flexiblity and friendliness of it and I run Guildford’s Ladies Who Latte group, which is a free networking group for women. There are plenty of networking meetings around, I could easily go to a breakfast meeting in the morning, morning group, lunch time group and an evening event every day of the week without having to travel more than a few miles! I would recommend that you find a group you like and go regularly so that you build up relationships with the people you meet. When you go regularly it feels more like walking into a room full of friends than networking. Have fun!

Related articles that you might find interesting

Do you listen when you are networking?

Speech Coaching on BBC Surrey

Nicky Kriel

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Nicky Kriel | Social Media Coach & Trainer | Social Media for Business

Inspiring you to grow your business through Social Media

Tag Archives: small business

5 Ways to overcome Networking Nerves for Novices

Nicky Kriel

Things you will love about it.

What you’ll hate

What is LinkedIn Today?

How to use LinkedIn Today

Tailor your LinkedIn Today

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1. You can no longer send Updates to all your Fans

2. Apps require SSL

3. Likes are no longer required for people to leave comments

4. You no longer need 25 likes to get a vanity URL or unique username

5. Ticker and Top News Opportunity

6. Larger photos

7. New Analytics will go into more depth

8. Are talking about this

9. Shares are Visible

10. Discussions are going

11. The Review tab will be going too

So what do I think?

Aspects I like

Big Concerns

Questions

How Facebook Places works

Why you should be interested

How to get a Facebook Place Page

What happens if you don’t have a Place?

Boolean Search in a Nutshell

How do you create a List?

Formality

Professionalism vs. Likeability

Expansion vs. Brevity

Continuity vs. Immediacy:

Relationship building