Where I've been going wrong with social networking

Posted on 13. Sep, 2007 by Craig Killick in Social Media

Honest, I do know this stuff but I’ve had a massive wake-up call this week. Don’t get me wrong – I get it – I just haven’t been doing it very well.

When it comes to social networking and, with so many social tools at hand, I get the whole idea of talking about stuff and linking, but I was missing one important key… I wasn’t been very sociable with my social networking.

The point is, with social networking, that it’s all about people connecting – not websites, blogs and Myspace pages.

Since I restarted my Blog a couple of weeks ago, I have discovered that I can actually speak to people when I put my mind to it and, people tend to speak back – a real two-way conversation and a growing network to boot.

MyBlogLog has helped me do this quite quickly but a bit of interacting through e-mail, pro-actively seeking out like-minded people through sites and a little bit of commenting on blogs, has actually helped me in a number of ways (and I am sure the same could happen to you):

1. I’ve found people who understand my commercial frustrations – the empathy is very soothing. Some agree and some open my eyes to different (intelligent) viewpoints that make me have a better understanding of my trade.
2. Through these people, I am finding more people as my net spreads wider – take point (1) and multiply.
3. People are finding me (see point (2) and flip the process).

You don’t have to be a geek to do this, you just need to work at it and get stuck in. You’ll make mistakes, like I did (and continue to do) and you’ll work out the way social media sites and networking can benefit you, and, not just from a business sense either.