Business networking in the 21st century

Business networking in the 21st century remains a critical component of building and maintaining contacts with like-minded entrepreneurs and existing and potential clients.

Business Networking in the 21st Century

Networking in today's world can be a very different prospect to yester year. Technology has created a whole host of new platforms with which businesses can network effectively.

The internet and social media has made it easier than ever to communicate with people from relevant organisations and networks and share knowledge, attract new clients and recruit new employees.

The combination of new social media tricks of the trade with the traditional means of liaising with useful resources and forging new working relationships means business networking is multi-faceted in the 21st century.

Make use of LinkedIn

LinkedIn is arguably the largest business-related social networking site on the internet and consequently is a great platform to build and manage your professional identity. LinkedIn has over 10,000 groups that you can join and participate in discussions and debates whilst connecting with corporate blogs in an effort to engage with your professional network.

Shout about your expertise

Don’t be afraid to display your expertise to potential clients and fellow professionals. Use social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook to build a virtual contacts book and offer regular snippets of advice that add value to your followers’ day-to-day working lives. If you’ve got something more in-depth to say why not consider writing a personal blog that can be a great way of building contacts and trust in an informal manner.

Encourage word of mouth

One of the main benefits of social media networks is that they encourage effective word of mouth marketing for products and services. If the response is positive and it goes viral it can be a major coup for emerging businesses. Similarly, it can be a very damaging experience if businesses receive negative feedback. However, in the main it is great for brand exposure and for building trust with potential clientèle.

Show your face at events

In order to become a familiar figure to like-minded entrepreneurs and potential connections it is important to engage with local business networking organisations and show your face at as many events as possible.

Death of the business card? No way!

Although you could be forgiven for thinking business cards may be somewhat defunct in their purpose with the accessibility of the internet and social media, it is still a very successful tool for attracting leads and referrals in the 21st century. A business card still makes that all-important first impression of your business to potential customers and subsequently it should be eye-catching and memorable, whilst being a treasure trove of contact information without being mundane.

Be selective with new contacts

It is highly likely you will meet a multitude of names and faces when business networking in the 21st century. However, the likelihood of staying in contact with all your new connections is very slim. Consequently you should aim to be selective with the contacts you touch base with on a regular basis – ideally entrepreneurs and businesses that can offer you something extra.

Business networking remains a crucial skill for successful entrepreneurs and effective networking will certainly add an extra dimension to your businesses’ growth potential.

14 thoughts on “Business networking in the 21st century

  1. Hi Andrew,

    Great advice, LinkedIn is best site as of now to build business and professional relationships. By using these social media sites you can find many like minded people who can help you in your problem.

  2. Great post Andrew.Would like to add that for making best out of any social network its very essential to maintain relationship with people.Just by launching a simple post noting, much could be gained.Building long term relation is the key to gain trust and increase loyal customers.

    • Christopher (admin team)

      That is true Venus, to really reap the benefits, you need to play an active role, and not just throw out a status and blog post once a month!

      Thanks for the comment, welcome to Technology Bloggers 🙂
      Christopher – Admin Team

  3. I can’t imagine the modern internet business without social media and if you don’t work with social media you are losing lots of potential clients that can be your clients. I find word-of-mouth promotion one of the best ones and the most effective as still peope tend to believe other people more than the as on TV.

  4. Maybe the traditional design or style of business cards is no longer useful for others whom we actually meet online, but only up to that aspect. It’s precisely the reason why business owners come up with business card designs. Actually, I’m seeing lots of businesses who also include their online presence like their email address, facebook and of course their website in their business cards.

    • Christopher (admin team)

      Interesting stuff Christina, I should pay more attention to business cards I think!

      Thanks for the comment, welcome to the Technology Bloggers community!
      Christopher – Admin Team

      • You really should! Though we’re using a most advanced ways in marketing our products or services, we shouldn’t missed to pay attention to our offline target market as well. There’s actually this one site that featured about the best business cards ever used. The designs are pretty unusual like business card made as match. It attracts more customers because they find themselves interested with the business.

  5. Networking is truly an art form. I know some people who seem to fall naturally into the right group of people or businesses and things just take off, while others struggle and choke. I must admit I have been on the struggle and choke side of things more than once.

    I think your information on LinkedIn is interesting. I haven’t personally taken the opportunity to use LinkedIn much in that manner. Perhaps this online socializing will come more naturally to those of us who tend to fumble the person-to-person networking events.

  6. I agree with your last point on being selective. I think social media has definitely made it easier to network but if you are not careful you can end up with a huge list of contacts that you never actually interact with. If you want to make the most of it then quality of contacts is still very important.

  7. Christopher (admin team)

    Social media is a very useful tool, which has the potential to play a very large part in promotion campaigns 🙂

    Thanks for the comment, welcome to the community!
    Christopher – Admin Team

  8. Modern world is full of social media and every time when you start business you should bear it in your mind. LinkedIn is one of the best sites ever withlots of inspration and ideas for business. AS for business cards, I have noticed the same tendency that people inlcude social media site links on their business cards

  9. Andrew,

    Networking is critical, you’re absolutely right. The one problem I have is that there are so many people out there doing similar things that it’s hard at times to really feel that you’re getting anywhere. It’s easy to get lost in the crowd.

    That being said, I think it’s important to realize that every individual contact, every relationship, is progress. You don’t need 2,000 contacts to be successful. Meeting one new person is all you need to develop a new customer, partnership, or mentor. Looking at it that way is what has caused me to move forward and not get caught up in the numbers game.

    Thanks for the great advice!

    Melanie

  10. It is nice to use social media in modern business, but i agree with Melanie that we shouldn’t forget about personal contacts and seing potential clients eye-to-eye as it is personal contacts are very important. Besides working with social media is really hard work as you need to work with them all the time about 24 hours a day to get some results.

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