Networking 101: Why Network And Three Ways To Find People To Network With.

No matter what you do in life, networking is essential. You can slowly crawl your way to the top, only to find yourself back at the bottom. Ask anyone who runs a successful YouTube, Twitter, etc. and they will tell you the same thing. Yes, there are exceptions but looking at those exceptions, they either have an out of the box idea(s) or joined the ‘scene’ before the competition arrived.

In a nutshell networking allows you to contact people and promote yourself in our case. Although it is simple and effective just like blogging if you stick to it long enough your ‘list’ will grow and incredible benefits will come.

Networking can be done in complex ways but my basic way is, get connections. Here are three ways to gain connections with ease:

1. Get Friends and Family to Help You

Your family and real friends are there for a reason. To spend time with you and help you when you need. A problem many of us face including me, is not wanting to speak up because we are embarrassed. If there is anything I’ve learned but fail to apply in areas that I should such as blogging is that confronting someone almost never has a negative outcome unless that is your intention. Just tell them you have x and if you know they have a YouTube, a store, a blog, etc. just ask them to do y to help you. This should work especially well with close family because you can guide them as they do it.

2. Follow People Who You Can Relate To On Social Media

This doesn’t necessarily mean follow everyone who you can because some people just are not as valuable as others because they lack personality or are just hard to get in contact with. Following them however, is not enough. If you are on Twitter, tweet at them or send them a direct message. If you are on YouTube send them a private message and so on. Just let them know you exist. After you talk and feel comfortable say something along the lines of,

‘Hey how’s it going? I run a X and noticed you run something similar to mine. I was wondering if you would mind promoting me? I would love it and would do it back for sure’.

Of course depending on the person how professional you sound matters. Just learn from their personality. This will not work all the time because either people do not want to help or they do not have the time. DO NOT get angry with them because chances are they have a valid reason and maybe one day they will get back to you.

3. Offer Help 

This is something that I should not need say to you but I notice how many people lack this skill simply because it does not have something coming around for them. They are wrong. If someone asks you to help them code something you will probably say I charge x number of dollars for that service. If the task will take you 30 minutes or less you should do it without hesitation. Why? Well I have had experience in this. I am a video editor and I have had people ask me to do a quick little edit for them (1-2 hours). I say yes because one, I know I will be credited and have more traffic on my YouTube. Two, it just seems like the right thing to do. Finally three, they will appreciate what I have done and may pay out of the kindness of their heart. I have done this for people several times just as a thank you for doing it for free and I have had people do it to me out of the kindness of their heart.

Final Notes: Although it may be very tempting to have someone do something for you; Do not spam or beg them. All this does is give you a bad reputation and even if that person does give in, they will not be passionate about assisting you which will reduce the traffic they bring to you and they will not come back to you if you need them again. Taking chances is also very important. Do not think someone will not do something because they are ‘famous’. This excludes celebrities because they just do not have the time. However, that will be a post for another day where I share some of my experiences with ‘famous’ people. As always,

HAPPY BLOGGING!

What methods do you use to get connections? Post down below!