Dominic de Souza的动态

Transcript

Ever heard of spamnecting? It's like the opposite of connecting. It's a word I accused myself of a year ago in starting to take LinkedIn more seriously, and realizing that instead of building networks based on value I was just mashing that 'connect' button and going around and just [connecting] with people. I followed some bad advice and did the same thing on my Instagram profile, and just went like connect-connect-connect... And then you sort of get the law of averages or whatever. Some of those people are gonna follow you back. And that's how you build your account. Most of us I think did that with Facebook in the early days. What I very quickly realized was that all the networks became boring. I was following people who had no meaning to me. Who were completely uninterested in anything I had to say, or anything I wanted to offer. And I didn't care about them either because I took no time to actually look into who they were, and try to foster relationship, and actually get to know people. So beginning of 2018, or 2017, I did something that a lot of people have started doing. I went through and I cleared out everybody that I've never met, or I've never interacted with, or people I spamnected to. Almost everybody that I spoke to who have been doing this kind of thing said that it's been almost magical. The transformation that's happened in their network. Because they're getting back to why that network exists in the first place, and it's starting to inspire them again - instead of being filled with a ton of content that means nothing to them. On top of it they're now getting back to being inspired by people and content that really does inspire them. Of course, when you do that, you now put more into the experience, which which drives up just engagement for everybody. So spamnecting is something you should absolutely avoid doing because it doesn't help anybody. It's a constant source of complaint on LinkedIn - people just hitting that 'connect' button and you have no idea why, or why they're interested in following you, or why they're interested in reaching out to you. So something that I strongly recommend you doing, if you're not already doing, is this: when you reach out and connect to somebody, include a message. Pick something on their profile, or something about them that you really liked, and say, "Hey," and then use their name - because we all love hearing our names being used. And then include something that creates a bridge between you and that person, and encourages them to also want to connect back with you. Then just don't like and run from there on out. Start paying attention to them. Network more slowly, but more authentically. And of course, if you're building coffee chats on top of that, then you're taking an extra 15 minutes out of your week to actually personalize your relationship with that person. Again, you don't need a thousand people to be connected to. You need a hundred of the right people. Or the whole 'thousand true fans.' You don't need a million people to be connected with you. Just a thousand of the right people. A thousand of the right clients. And especially with LinkedIn, a lot of us are not - or some of us are not - going to find our ideal clients on LinkedIn. But we are going to be able to build our ideal network on LinkedIn of people who may be connected to our ideal clients. So if you're not actually engaging with building a network based on value, and you're just spamnecting, then you can be missing a ton of valuable opportunities, because you're not getting to know actual people. So. That's something that I've learned this past year, and it's just changed how I use LinkedIn, how I use Instagram, any social network. And of course, just building a business in general - taking the time to actually get to know, and meet people. What advice do you have? How are you using LinkedIn to build meaningful connections? And it could just be real simple stuff. Maybe you enjoy putting a ton of time into it. I would love to know. I'd love to be inspired by that, and it's often fascinating just to get us all sharing our experiences, or advice, and things that we're doing. So go ahead and put in the comments. I promise to respond to [you]!