William Buist

William Buist, director of Abelard Management Services explains his top ten tips on how to make the most from Social Networking

1. Pick your site
There are lots of networking sites, so chose one that fits with you. You need to spend time in the network so be sure you feel comfortable and enjoy what you see and will feel comfortable contributing and being involved.

2. Build a good profile
Your profile is what people will make a first impression from, and things like a picture need to be relatively up to date and show you as you are. In your profile don’t just talk about one or two things, you need to show yourself as others find you. Social networking is about trust, so be honest. .

3. Become a connector.
As you get to know people you’ll be able to connect them with others that you know. As they learn about you, the connections will start to be made to you by others too. Great connectors tend to be sought out.

4. Write to be read (and that means knowing your audience)
When you write in a social network about 10 times as many people read what you write as comment directly, yet readers will talk about what they read to others. Headlines sell newspapers and bring readers to your content too; content should stand out in a quick glance.

5. Keep to what you know and be yourself
When you write about what you know you demonstrate your expertise, doing that in your own style helps to ensure that people recognise your expertise in the same way when they meet you.

6. Help others and learn from them
When you can help someone who is seeking advice and guidance in your area of expertise you demonstrate that you are the expert in that field, and attract others to you, when you see others helping you learn about their expertise.

7. Ask better questions
Even if you understand a subject really well asking questions elicits a conversation in which everyone learns, whereas articles that make statements tend only to be read. Stretch your knowledge by questioning other experts and the better the question the more engagement you’ll see

8. Do what you control.
You can’t force others to do what you need, but you can choose to do what they need, Whatever your goals from Social Networking other people can’t help you unless you help them to choose to do so. Set goals for what you do in the network, not for what you want from it.

9. Learn from everything, and be bold..
Social networking is a new phenomenon and many people are now engaged, Lot’s is being tested and tried out, so look for opportunities to incorporate the things you see others doing into what you do and don’t be afraid to experiment.

10. Take your time
Social Networking doesn’t change one basic ground rule. Relationships take time and visibility, trust and trade come from spending the time to make them happen.

Ends