The cool thing about the internet is that it literally makes the world microscopically small. Just the other night I finally had the chance to meet the FABOOSH Coach Jennie (AKA The Audacity Coach) thanks to a mutual friend, blogger and coach. Turns out she knows someone from Miami who can put me in contact with others in the personal development area – which is just EXACTLY what I’ve been looking for!
Let me break it down for you guys – thanks to this blog I met Diana (Unleash Your Sexy, Enter Adulthood), who was a mutual contact with Coach Jennie who lives in New York. From New York Coach Jennie could put me in contact with people in Miami which is over a thousand miles away. So yeah, once again the internet blew my mind.
So aside from the typical social media outlets I’ve been exploring other ways to connect with like-minded individuals online. Below you’ll find some of the most effective techniques I’ve come across.
Facebook Groups
I’m in love with Facebook Groups as of late. I’m a part of Carrie Smith’s The Careful Cents Freelancers Club, Coach Jennie’s Team Audacity and International Coach Academy’s Connecting Life Coaches.
All three of these groups have put me in connection with other life coaches (some of which I’ve gotten free coaching from), amazing online entrepreneurs and incredible resources for my own endeavors. It’s a great way to connect with like minded individuals and support each other on your journeys.
Follow Your Faves on Twitter
Carrie Smith recently posted a stellar piece on Simply Hired entitled 5 Ways to Effectively Use Twitter to Land Your Next Job. Since then I’ve been making Twitter lists like a mad woman!
My next step will be to partake in more Tweet Chats. I was already a guest on one of them back in June, but revving up my game and participating in some others would be a great way to make some connections.
Tweeting to my faves more often will also expand my network. Coach Jennie and I actually set up our Skype session because I reached out to her on Twitter.
Other Online Networks
I was actively involved in 20 Something Bloggers for a very long time and although I’ve taken a major hiatus I would like to get back there. Thanks to this network I was able to find some of my all time favorite blogs, including Jenny Blake’s Life After College.
I also joined Gabrielle Bernstein’s HerFuture.com to connect with other ladies who were all about positive psychology, spirituality, health and female empowerment. Through this community I found like-minded ladies in the Miami area and we’re even planning an in-person meet up! Truthfully speaking If it wasn’t for this community I never would have found these ladies in a city of 2.5 million people.
So there you have it – my three must-use online networking techniques. Otherwise known as three ways the internet blows my mind.
How do you network online? Feel free to share in the comments!
My online networking is similar to you Amanda, (I think I found you 1st on Brazen Careerist actually). It was through blogging and social media that many wondeful things started to happen in my life. I too met my coach and business mentors because of blogging and Twitter. I started a business out of my love for writing and social networking and gained some of my first non-local online clients via Facebook groups (without doing “buy my stuff right now” posts). Thanks to blogging I finally had the courage to write for local offline publications and now I’m officially a published writer how cool is that?!? Just recently I decided to go hard locally so I’m loving LinkedIn. It was through LinkedIn that I was able to meet awesome local heavy hitters like Melinda Emerson aka SmallBiz Lady. I’m also embracing meetup.com (an old love) to see what great local business relationships I can form. All in all online networking is amazing and I can’t see why anyone wouldn’t benefit from it.
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That is awesome! I’m trying to up the local networking as well. We’ll see how it goes!
Whenever I get super busy with clients I megaaaa neglect my social media accounts. How do you stay on top of all of it, Amanda? I work with clients to do THEIR social media marketing/relationship building but I am so neglectful with my own!!!
It’s all about prioritizing! I also use HootSuite and have all of my accounts linked together – so if I update my Facebook page Twitter gets updated as well.