Valerie Simon

Most of us freely acknowledge that a strong network will help your business, your career and even personal life. Dedicating time to networking is always a challenge. Though social networking provides a multitude of convenient opportunities to meet and converse with others who share similar interests, good old-fashioned, face-to-face networking remains an excellent way to build and develop deep relationships. It’s true, attending conferences and meetings are an investment of both time and money, But if you target the right events, and make the most of them, you’ll certainly find a worthwhile return on your investment.

Set your intentions
Consider who you hope to network with before you commit to attend an event. Are you hoping to meet others in the PR industry or improve your contacts with the media or vendors? Do you want to focus on those who share a similar focus, such as healthcare or technology? Are you looking to broaden your network to include professionals from around the country, or do you want to build a name for yourself on a local level? As with any investment, be sure to do your research in advance.

Get out there and mingle
Members of our team here at BurrellesLuce will be out and about this spring, attending local events across the country such as the PRSA Western District Conference (April 22-24)  and the PRSA GA Annual Conference in May. We’ll also be meeting folks from across the country at national gatherings such as the Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals Annual Conference (April 21-24), Bulldog Reporter Media Relations 2009 (May 17-19), the PR Week Measurement & Monitoring Roundtable (May 14) and the PRSA Counselors Academy Spring Conference (May 31-June 2).

Stay in touch
To make the most of the events you attend put your social networking savvy to use. Following up with new contacts via email is a nice start, but to begin cultivating long term relationships, be sure and add them to your LinkedIn contacts. If you Twitter, be sure that your twitter ID is on your LinkedIn profile. While LinkedIn provides an excellent database for staying up-to-date with inevitable changes in jobs and contact information, Twitter provides a great outlet to broadcast information to your network, as well as a great means for more frequent conversation. While there remains discussion as to whether people are comfortable adding professional contacts to their “friends” on Facebook, find out if your new contacts’ organization has a fan page and become a fan.

If you would like more information regarding any of aforementioned events, or would like to meet up with someone from BurrellesLuce at one of these events: drop me a email at vmsimon@burrellesluce.com; send me a tweet @ValerieSimon; leave a message on the BurrellesLuce Facebook fan page!

I’d also love to hear what networking events you have found most effective and why.