The above video is my thoughts on the way to the social media breakfast.
Social Media Breakfasts are a great way to meet other social media types in a more professional environment than a tweetup. I was fortunate enough to attend the 4th breakfast in Ottawa this past Wednesday morning hosted by Gowlings.
This is the 3rd event I’ve attended and it was a really good one. It had a record crowd of over 100 people. I believe the biggest issue now for the organizers will be finding venues that can hold a group this size or larger.
For the first time they had a panel instead of a speaker. The speakers were great but I much prefer the panel approach. Hearing different panelists’ thoughts as well as those from the audience made it quite interactive and fun.
I found it particularly interesting how they mentioned that ~70%+ (more like 90%++) of visitors to any site are lurkers who seldom if ever participate; never initiating. If you are going to take the time to visit a site; why not participate? Socialize? Network!? Make that small effort to join the conversation and stop lurking; I GUARANTEE that you’ll get a LOT more out of everything you do.
For further details on the panel and the event please visit the Eventbrite page. Mel Gallant also wrote a great detailed recap here.
I highly recommend you search for a social media breakfast in your area; they are well worth it; whether you’re a morning person or not!
Quick short bloggery straight to the point today. If you do business in $US I urge you to check your current exchange rate. In Canada $1US = $1.24CDN right now. That’s massive. I remember the LONGEST time trying to convert money and either losing on the conversion or having such a small gain it was negligible.
Check your accounts both business and personal; this could very well be a GREAT time to convert some cash. I jumped on this bandwagon last week when it was at ~1.15 conversion which I’m still happy with. I would be happier if I had gamble and you might be extremely happy if you haven’t been paying attention and check out the rates today.
That’s about it; keep working hard and hopefully from home! (Wherever that is).
Networking events and face to face interaction are awesome in my opinion. It let’s you actually meet the people you usually deal with online and meet many more people as well.
If you’re a somewhat outgoing individual it’s very easy to meet many many like minded individuals at one of these events. Sadly just meeting the people and chatting isn’t all you need to do. Once you’ve gotten home with 150-500 business cards your work has basically “just begun”.
Many people send out notes the day after; I have nothing negative to say about this approach. It does show ambition, seriousness as well as dedication. The reason I don’t is a) I’m not that organized and b) I’d rather let the dust settle for a bit. Right after any event everyone is sending the follow ups and it’s easy to start prioritizing while putting some on the back burner. Why not wait a few weeks until all the “hype” has died down and they will have better time to read your follow up note and maybe action something from it?
I have about ~250 cards I need to get through. In order to do this I’m going to pick out (at random) 5-10 cards a day and over the course of the day just follow up with them. It will take a while to go through all of them but there is no big rush. If it was something URGENT and you had agreed upon it at the conference it would be taken care of. This is just a follow up to keep a contact you’ve made. After all if you took the time to meet, exchange ideas and cards it’s probably someone you don’t want to lose touch with correct?
When writing follow ups; make them as personalized as possible. I can TELL when I get a group email sent individually to me. If you genuinely have no clue who they are except for a card in your hand; send one slightly less personalized but definitely including their full name etc…
Long and short of it is; take your time and write quality follow ups. Even if you don’t write quality follow ups just make sure you DO follow up. Sadly just meeting people and getting their cards isn’t the full process.
Do you have a mountain of cards? Get on it now and start slow; before you realize it you’ll be done and your network will of grown considerably.
Wishing you all a great day; especially if you’re working from home!
