If you've followed this blog for any amount of time you know that I preach over and over about real networking being about building relationships and helping other people. Today I'm writing about an opportunity for you to help me help someone else all with very little effort on your part. In fact it'll probably take you longer to read this blog post than it will to help us out. Read more »

Based on some of the conversations I have with people about networking it seems that an awful lot of people want to keep score. To be really honest I sometimes wish there was a way to keep score as well. In reality a simple score keeping mechanism would never be able to keep up with the complexities.  Read more »

I am honored to be a nominee for the Texas Social Media Awards. The Texas Social Media Awards is a brilliant idea brought to us by the Austin American Statesman. The Statesman is truly leading the way not just in Austin, but nationally when it comes to traditional media's usage of social media. They're not eligible for their own awards, but I would argue that its the Statesman who really deserves to win the Social Media Award. With nearly all of their reporters on Twitter it's now possible to truly have a dialogue with the daily paper. They really understand that the power of social media is creating community and conversation, and that's just what they're doing. Currently there are 125 nominees. The top 25 will be chosen and displayed by Feb. 18. An overall Statesman winner will be awarded at a party on March 15 which coincides with SXSW. It appears that much of the selection for the finalists will be based on the public comments about each nominee. Hopefully this doesn't turn into too much of a popularity contest. I'd much rather see the individuals who set the best examples of social media usage be finalists, not just those who receive the most comments. That being said I'm personally not beyond doing a little bit of campaigning, and would like to ask for your help. If you've benefited from the events and networking tips I share in the NetworkInAustin.com Newsletter or from any of the hundreds of blog posts I've written over the last 3.5+ years I hope you'll share your comments about the specific value you've received. Also if you have learned anything from the way that I utilize LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter I hope you'll share that as well. Share your comments on Scott's social media usage: Help me become a finalist! I'm probably not the only nominee you know. Please also considering commenting on the nominations of some of the other nominees who you feel are deserving. Here is a list of some of my friends and others I'm quite familiar with who certainly deserve a nod: Andy Meadows Bryan Menell Bryan Person Connie Reece David Davenport Elizabeth (Liz) Handlin Eugene Sepulveda Jay Ehret John Erik Metcalf Joshua Baer Kay Bell Doug Ulman (Lance Armstrong Foundation)   Michelle Greer   Mike Chapman Sam Decker If you really want to learn what social media is all about spend some time understanding what these folks and the rest of the nominees are doing. Something tells me your time will be very well invested. I hope to find some time to do this myself. Congratulations to all of the nominees! Happy Networking! Scott Ingram NetworkInAustin.com

The number of social/online networking tools is, to put it bluntly, overwhelming. From Business Blogs to Twitter, LinkedIn to Facebook, Plaxo to MySpace and everything in between the choices are astounding. Hopefully you're using at least one of these tools, even if it's only casually. The trick is to develop your own strategy in how you utilize these tools so they don't take over your life. If done incorrectly the time you spend on e-mail and your social networking activities will consume ALL of your available time. That would be bad, unless that's your business. So how do you develop this strategy? First an understand of what you're trying to accomplish would be very helpful. Personally I have three primary goals when utilizing these tools. Maintain or deepen connections with people I've already met. Build visibility for myself and the things I work on and am passionate about, and attract other like minded people to me through these efforts. Find appropriate contacts and make connections through referrals/introductions. Initiate new professional relationships that make sense. Once you're clear about your goals you can start to think about how you'll use each tool. I'll share with you 2 of my own examples: I've already written about My LinkedIn Networking Philosophy I encourage you to read that. Very generally LinkedIn is a way for me to maintain contact with people I have a genuine connection with. That way if they change jobs or move I don't lose track of them because all of their other contact information changed. I have a way of being in the loop. It also helps me see relational connections. For example if I want to meet the CEO of a prospective company and they're on LinkedIn I can see our mutual connections and potentially ask those individuals to make an introduction for me. Twitter is quickly becoming my new favorite tool. I avoided this one for a long time because from the outside it sounds just plain goofy and like it will be a colossal waste of time. Turns out it's the best relationship deepener I've ever seen. People I know well who I follow on Twitter I now know really, really well. Even more impactful are those that I kinda know, and have the ability to get to know at a much deeper level. It's a little hard to explain just how this works. I highly recommend you just quickly create an account, follow a few people and see what you think. You're welcome to start with my profile just to get an idea: www.twitter.com/scottingram Over time I will go deeper into the use of each of these tools (stay tuned!). In the mean time your best bet is to just begin to play with a couple of these sites. Here's a little bit of generic guidance on the order in which you should explore these sites and why. If you are a business professional this is my opinion of the order of importance of these tools: LinkedIn - If you're a professional you MUST be on LinkedIn. Facebook - It's less geared toward professionals, but it's much better at helping you reconnect with people in your long ago past. High School, College, etc. Twitter/Business Blogs - In terms of priority these are tied. However, what they each bring to the picture is very different. Plaxo/Myspace - For the professional I think these are fairly irrelevant. Plaxo doesn't really add any value beyond those listed above (it used to in the past when it was about keeping contact information up to date). As for MySpace it's maybe not my place to say this since I'm not even on it, but I don't see how it adds value for the professional. Please feel free to comment if you disagree. All others - Beyond these core tools there are probably hundreds of others. The learning curve and critical mass is typically steep enough that unless there is something in a very specific niche that would be helpful to you it's probably not worth your time to explore these. Again, I'm open to suggestion and hope you'll comment if there are other tools that have been helpful to you. I encourage you to look beyond this post. I've written at least a little bit about most of these tools, especially business blogging (as that's what you're reading now) and you can navigate these topics using the categories listed below. Happy Networking! Scott Ingram NetworkInAustin.com