I love to network, face to face, online, on the phone, I was definitely born to network. Saying that I am intuitive and I pick things up fast. I listen, learn, take notice and see how the experts do it because they do it well. Recently I experienced the joy of meeting one of my hero's who is well known on the social network sites, particularly Twitter. That person is Scott Stratten, President of Unmarketing. Scott mentions in his seminar that being transparent will take you far. I took this one step further and thought about transparency being mistaken for being naked.
How many times are you sent a request to befriend someone on Facebook and you have no idea who they are? This is fine but at least offer a reason for wanting to connect and be friends. The same thought works for LinkedIn, there are certain rules which are put in place for a reason and one suggestion on LinkedIn is not to connect with someone you don't know. But obviously how can you get to know someone without connecting to them?
Transparency does not mean jump in head first with no idea who, why, what, where. In order to build up a relationship of trust know the answers to those questions. To me it seems as if people are running around naked on the social media sites in particular, no profiles, no photos, no real good reason for being there! Transparency, to me, means being open and trustworthy and letting the other person know who you are, what you want, etc.
When you go out shopping I would assume you wear clothes and take along some money/credit card? You are wearing your tools so that you can do what you set out to achieve. Why enter the world of networking and assume everyone will know who you are?
Dress for success is my motto, make sure wherever you network you are well dressed, you are equipped with the right tools for the job and by all means take Scott's advice and be transparent, but not naked, to the world.
- Log in to post comments