Don't you just love networking!

I've been a seasoned professional at this for all of 5 days!  There are loads of sites out there with thousands of people all waiting for you to "ping" them.

I've joined ecademy (14 day free trial), network2connect.com (1 month free trial) and have just joined women in business (just free!).

In the five days in which I've been networking, I've been invited to attend two meetings and a couple of coffees - it's nice to know the virtual world has a caffeine habit too!  I must say the whole networking idea is totally addictive.  The idea seems to be that you randomly hit on people.  An email is sent to the pingee by the system taking you to the pinger's profile.  To start a connection you email eachother - the trick is to get as many connections as you can.  The more connections you get the more you get known in cyberspace.

The idea behind networking is people buying people.  You hear that phrase a lot.  Basically your only chance to talk to the pinger or pingee is that first contact.  It would seem that the major tip is not to sell your business - don't even mention it!  Talk about the weather or the price of tea in China (unless you happen to be a chinese tea importer of course then choose a different topic).  If people like the sound of you they'll go and look at your profile.  Oh, don't even flog your business in your profile - merely hint at it - and provide a weblink - thereby increasing the traffic to your website! The more people think you're an approachable person with which to do business the more you're likely to succeed in the networking game.

Alas, I'm not of the photogenic persuasion, so I never got around to posting a picture.  This too seems to be a big mistake.  Again, part of the people buying people scenario, if you stick an attractive pic on your profile (preferably of you), then you are more likely to gain more "connections".  I'm sure it's something to do with everyone wanting to be friends with the good looking kid - guess that's why I had such a lonely childhood - (only joking!).

Anyway - networking - a great thing - but far too addictive!  Will go out and post some useful links when I work out how to do it!