Mari Smith, a Facebook guru and social media expert, recently wrote a post on her blog asking opinions about the benefits of in-person vs. online social networking. She made compelling points about being able to attend live events and then bring back the experiences from those events and share them online, either through connecting with people you met there using social media tools, or by uploading and sharing photos of the event using various photo-sharing sites. She also described the benefits of building a large online network and then leveraging that to create off-line business relationships. It made me consider the way I go about building and fostering my business relationships.
In the past, I was an active attendee at business networking events and I made terrific business contacts and friends as a result. However, since becoming a mom and running my business, I’ve had less time to attend those events, and so my off-line relationships have floundered a bit. As a result, I’ve felt somewhat pressed to get back out there. However, with social media, I’ve been able to maintain and recapture some of those business connections and even enhance them by sharing valuable information with one another. In fact, two of my most recent clients came as a result of reconnecting with old business contacts on LinkedIn.
I do believe that if I can couple my offline and online networking efforts, I will be able to further expand my network and strengthen my connections. I’ll keep you posted as I expand what I’m doing in both areas.
What about you? Do you like to put your efforts into online or offline networking? Or, do you do both? Do you think one has more success than the other? I’d love to hear what you think.”
