Networking | FabianPattberg.com

Tag Archives - networking

The Beauty of Networking – The 21st Century Way

May 29, 20096:52 pm

This week has been a good week. And I wanted to finish it off with a quick recap and some reflections on how much and how little business networking has changed in my opinion.

The week in review:

The new version of the SustainabilityForum.com is nearly ready. A few more tweaks and we are ready to go next week (Fingers crossed).
Business is going well too. So far I cannot feel the economic downturn. But I think I can consider myself lucky and I am grateful for that.
I was able to purchase the domain Fairtrader.org this week. Who knows…that might be another project down the line. A really nice name. Short and memorable.

21st Century Business Networking
This week has also been a fantastic business networking week. I was able to connect with so many great new people. And that made me think. How many people would I have been able to connect with this week and the last few months without the use of some of the modern online business networking tools.

The answer is pretty clear…..not a lot. Especially not from all across the world.

I then remembered that I recently talked to my father about this and how amazed he was about these networking tools.

He said that he is and always has been relying on three business main ways to expand his business network:

Attending and organizing conferences and workshops
Being a member of a business club or other clubs in interest areas such as sport, art, etc.
Cold calling possible business partners and customers to arrange one to one meetings.

Our new networking activities that have drastically changed the way we now network enhance these three business networking activities in my opinion. I categorize them in three areas:

Social Media: Tools such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. help us to connect to like minded people easier then ever before without having meet in person.
Online Business Meetups: Websites such as Meetup.com etc. now make it incredibly easy to find meetings and get-togehters with like minded people in your local, regional and national community.
The evolution of modern communications: Modern communication tools such as Skype and the normality of telephone international flat rates make it so much easier and convenient to reach out to people all across the globe.

Again, the beauty of these new tools is that they all enhance and increase your networking possibilities in a way that my father only dreamed about 20 years ago. And I think this is only the beginning. We will see great new developments in these areas ove the next 10 years.

But I also believe these old and new ways of networking have one outcome in common: To really build a proper and long lasting business relationship we always have to meet in person as business is still and will always be conducted between individuals that know and trust each other.

Modern business networking technology will not change this basic law no matter what. And this is a good thing.

Picture Credit: luc legay

My Four Twitter Tools

December 10, 200811:53 pm

0 Comments

I have been using Twitter (What is Twitter?) as a social networking tool and to connect to friends for over 6 months now.
Since then the possibilities and tools using Twitter have increased immensely. Todays post will be used to provide you with the four tools I use to manage my updates using Twitter.

Best Twitter Client
The best management tool for Twitter other then using the web version in my opinion is TweetDeck. There are some more Twitter clients out there but this is by far the best one I think. Tweetdeck provides everything you need to use Twitter in an effective way. Really useful.

Instant Twitter Posts

I also frequently use the TwitThat program as an instant posting client. TwitThat is a great little tool for a quick and easy way of instantly posting to Twitter. No need to register just but in your Twitter username and password and go. If you are not really looking for a more sophisticated Twitter Client like TweetDeck than this is for you.

Twitter and Music
If you are into music then Blip.fm is something you really need to check out. With Blip.fm you can share your music with your Twitter friends as well. Just sign up to Blip.fm and add your Twitter account name in the options to automatically send updates to Twitter whenever you listen to a song on Blip.fm.

An Immediate Blog with Twitter Integration
Last but not least am I using Posterous. Posterous is very easy tool for you to post anything and everything in a proper blog format. The neat thing is that there is no need to register or to administer before you can get started. You only need to email them the blog text and possible pictures as an attachment (if you want to use pictures) and they do the rest by posing it automatically. Here is my Posterous blog if you want to have a look at the look and feel. Once you have done your first post you can decide to automatically post updates from your Posterous to Twitter everytime you add a Posterous blog post. Really easy.

These are the four tools I use to make my Twitter usage easier and more enjoyable. I hope you will find them useful.

London, Germany and the SustainabilityForum.com

September 7, 20089:13 am

1 Comment

This past week has been another very busy and interesting one. I started out thinking I would be able to focus on the London network this week but on Tuesday I got a call to ask whether I would able to spend 2 days with a client in Germany. So I jetted off to Germany in the early hours of Thursday and arrived back in the UK late Friday evening.
Yesterday (Saturday) was great to relax and catch up on the past 2 days of emails and office work.
The next week will be spent here in London and I have a kick off meeting with my programmer to discuss the next steps for the SustainabilityForum.com. Many of weeks of back and forth on the future of the forum are now over and you can image how happy I am to finally get this show started. 
I will also have more new posts on Social Media, Networking, Sustainability, CSR and more this week. My plan is to; if I have the time, have new posts every day during the week from now on. We will see how this will be manageable.
So on to the next week.

All the best,
Fabian

How To Use LinkedIn To Build Your Business Network

September 3, 20082:49 pm

4 Comments

LinkedIn is the largest online networking site on the web and every person that is interested in building their professional network and growing their business can profit immensely from the usefulness of LinkedIn.

Why is that? Here are some stats for LinkedIn

Over 25 million professionals from over 150 different industries
One of the largest online recruitment and business development resources
187 % 2008 year-over-year growth (2007-2008)
Over 9.5 million page views month-on-month (May 2008)

LinkedIn is definitely one of the places on the net where every serious business person needs to have a profile.

The key to successfully using LinkedIn is to be an active member and to try to connect to as many people as possible even if you have not previously met this person.

Here are some tips and tricks on how to use LinkedIn to build your business network:

Fill out all the fields with your previous work experience, network, qualifications, etc. The more you tell about yourself the better you will be found on searches.
Upload a picture. Obvious I know. But over 50% of all profiles on LinkedIn I have seen do not have a picture of the person. A picture provides another personal touch. Use a picture.
Always keep your profile updated. This is also important as the system rates continuous user activity as a positive when it comes to be found in searches.
Join various LinkedIn groups to connect to likeminded people and invite them to connect.
If you have the money and you really begin to see the business benefit then why not become a business or business plus member. This will enable you to get more features and help you to be ranked higher in searches.
But the link to your profile in your email signature. In this way friend, business contacts will be able to go directly to your LinkedIn profile.
Invite people to connect via LinkedIn by looking them up using your Yahoo, Hotmail or Outlook contacts.
Be open and honest about yourself when using LinkedIn. It might “only” be a page on the internet but be aware that this page will also be indexed by search engines and therefore come up in your name search.

All in all is LinkedIn a fantastic resource for building your professional network so if you do not already have a LinkedIn profile then you are missing a trick.

Use Twitter – It Is Part Of The Future Of Networking

August 28, 200810:55 am

8 Comments

One of the lasting trends in social media in my opinion is the use of Twitter as a networking tool. Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

Why is that? Well because through Twitter you can easily build and increase your network, connect to friends and colleagues and last but not least drive visitors to your site. Here are some tips on how I use Twitter.

This is how I use Twitter.

I provide useful and short information on the profile page. Do not write more then 4 lines in the profile. Be short and sweet.
Have a nice and friendly picture of you. Comic avatars are nice but you need to do all you can to bridge the gap of anonymity as best as possible. So use a picture of yourself if possible.
Either be totally professional or crazy in the look and feel of your Twitter profile. In my opinion nothing in between works. I have chosen to focus on the professional look. Meaning nothing fancy and information first. Some others like the cool look like Jake Marsh and others. You decide.
Always provide daily updates on what you are doing. Twitter is all about continuous updates. No matter how unimportant for you. Your followers want to know what you are up to. So let them participate.
Try to provide something that is of value to your followers. Provide a comment ot a news story, news links, etc. But make sure to always include a link to the story you comment on.
Use the TinyURL format for links. This makes it easier for readers to follow you links and it is a lot better to look at.
When you are starting of try to find Twitter users that are in the similar area of work as you. Then follow them. This will help you to get noticed and get more
If you are looking to for users that have updates that include the topics you are interested then the best way to go forward would be to use the Twitter search function at http://search.twitter.com. This is a really useful tool. I use it a lot.

That is it for now. Please let me know whether you have any other ways on how to use Twitter. I am open to all further ideas.

Fabian on Twitter

Where is the summer?

August 16, 20088:36 am

0 Comments

Well here it is the summer. For a couple of hours on a Friday that is. So you think: “Oh No not something about the weather again.”
I hate to write about the weather all the time but what can you do when the weather is so bad that you wish you would be somewhere warmer and sunnier. Okay now lets stop moaning now Fabian.

This week has been fairly quiet. You can really tell that it is the holiday season. Even my wife works from home today. This hasn’t happened for months because she was always to busy.
Because there was not so much going on this week I focused on online networking with a special emphasis on LinkedIn and Xing. I really love these networking sites. They are so useful sites to connect to likeminded people and professionals in your field. LinkedIn is more a global professional network where Xing in my opinion is very “Germany” focused. But in any case would I recommend to anyone interested in making new business contacts to register with both or at least with one.

I am going to Germany next week to meet up with a potential business partner in Hamburg. I am leaving a day earlier then Anne to meet them. Anne is going to Hamburg as well because we have another wedding in a week’s time close to Flensburg. (link to Flensburg).

And it decision time after that meeting. I have to finalize my plans for the redevelopment of the forum. This might not sound like a big and important decision but this decision in which direction to take the forum will be a huge influencer in where the future of my family lies in my opinion.

This weekend will be a nice weekend hopefully. Anne and I are meeting friends on the Sunday to, if the weather permits, take a long walk in the southern London area. There are some nice places to walk and with a 5-7 hour walk this day should be fun and great ot get away from the computer for a day.

Until next time everyone.

Fabian