Social Networking Web Sites ... Networking, Social Networking, Business Networking, Networking Skills ... My Networking Tactics by Bart Smith, TheMarketingMan.com

When it comes to "getting new" business, nothing works best than networking with "new people!" Here is a quick list of places you can attend to meet new people.

Networking helps build word-of-mouth advertising for your product, service and web site. Take a long with you brochures, flyers, post cards, samples, etc. Do not leave without talking to as many people as possible and getting to know "what they do" ... Don't be so worried about handing your business cards out. In stead, filter out those you talk to and "hear their story" who you think you'd like to work with most!

If people are there, YOU should be there NETWORKING with them and exchanging business cards. Get their business card, get their names, and be sure they get yours! Regularly attend any number of these social gatherings, conventions, seminars, meetings or trade shows and more! Make it fun, make it adventuresome!

WHERE CAN YOU MEET & NETWORK WITH OTHER PEOPLE? EVERY WHERE OTHER PEOPLE MEET & SOCIALIZE!
Associations of ALL KINDS! Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner Meetings Chamber of Commerce Classes of ALL KINDS! Concerts of ALL KINDS! Expos & Tradeshows of ALL KINDS! Family, Friend & Business Picnics Lead-Exchange Parties	Lectures of ALL KINDS! Meetings of ALL KINDS! Pep-Rallies of ALL KINDS! Night Courses of ALL KINDS! Parties & Pot Luck Dinners Presentations of ALL KINDS! Private Gatherings Schools Events	Service Clubs Social Events Seminars Workshops ___________? ___________? ___________? ___________?

You can also look in your local newspapers for local meetings, social mixers and other networking events! Check out thee Lifestyle, Entertainment, Calendar, Local Events and Business sections of any local or major city newspaper.

Make a few phone calls, talk to the newspaper staff in these departments for help and/or call the event planners of the events you see listed there. Tell them about yourself (they’ll be excited a new person is coming to their event. Then, when you arrive, you've already established a contact who can introduce you to all kinds of new people! How great is that? "Hey, ______, (I'm ______); glad to meet you! Yes, we spoke on the phone earlier this week about the event. I'm glad I came. So, who would you recommend I meet first? Anyone come to mind?"

You can also find networking groups online by going to Google.com or your favorite search engine, and entering any combination of the following key words searches:

KEY WORD SEARCH PHRASE

KEY WORDS

Your Expertise + Key Word

Your Hobby + Key Word

Your Industry + Key Word

Your Interest + Key Word

Your Town, State + Key Word

"business conventions"
"business expos"
"business meetings"
"business mixers"
"business networking"
"business trade shows"
"national conventions"

"national expos"
"national meetings"
"national tradeshows"
"networking mixers"
"networking events"
"social mixers"
"social meetings"

LinkedIn — With LinkedIn, you find the people, jobs and services you need through the people you know and trust, while you strengthen and extend your existing network. The people you need to reach already use LinkedIn. With more than 4.4 million users, you can find the contact you need at every level and in hundreds of industries Contact them in a trusted way. When an Introduction matters, LinkedIn lets you send a message through your network to reach the right sales leads, partners, and experts. When privacy matters, you can send InMail™, a LinkedIn service that allows you to directly contact the right person on LinkedIn.

Yahoo Groups — Another great way for groups of people to communicate and network together on the Internet.

Ryze.com — Ryze helps people make connections and grow their networks. You can network to grow your business, build your career and life, find a job and make sales. Or just keep in touch with friends. Ryze helps you expand your business network.

Get a FREE networking-oriented homepage.
Make quality business contacts
Re-connect with friends -- You probably know people in here already
Help your company make deals through Ryze members.
Build your network BEFORE you need it!

WorldWIT — WorldWIT is a the free, global online community for professional women (men are welcome, too) that provides member-to-member answers on career, business, technology, financial and "life" topics. WorldWIT is the leading global online and offline network for women in business and technology. WorldWIT offers networking, events, publications and services.

Company of Friends — Welcome to the Company of Friends, Fast Company magazine's global readers' network. Through the CoF, Fast Company helps readers and forward-thinking business leaders and innovators connect, communicate, and collaborate with other leading readers -- online as well as face to face in communities around the world.

First Tuesday — First Tuesday is the world's leading network for innovation and technology.

With over 41,000 active members worldwide, the First Tuesday network includes 28 cities in 15 countries across five continents and brings together the leading players in the technologies sector: entrepreneurs and managers of new ventures; venture capitalists and investors; service providers; and "intrapreneurs" and technology managers in corporate entities.

First Tuesday cities hold monthly events, such as: the OOOClassic event, which traditionally brings together the full range of a city's membership on the first Tuesday of the month; OOOThought Leadership events, which bring together leading experts to brainstorm on issues in the technology sector; or OOOWireless Wednesday events, which are focused on the wireless segment of the telecom sector.

Now in its fourth year of operations, the company was purchased by its network of First Tuesday cites in April 2001, comprising a majority of the city licensees, and by a group of private investors.

PowerMingle — Based in London, England, their services are based on a unique matching technology that matches people and ranks the matches according to the mutual benefit of establishing contact. This effectively removes the process of searching for people to network with. People create their own profile and are instantly matched with others with whom they can extend their network.

The National Association for Female Executives — NAFE (The National Association for Female Executives) is one of the largest and most diverse female business organizations in the country, with a membership of over 60,000 professional women and female business owners. NAFE provides networking resources and exclusive member services--through its publications, events and commitment to the advancement of women--to empower members to achieve career success and financial security.

DirectMatches — DirectMatches is the first in the online business and social networking industry to deploy a multi-matchmaking system that helps people locate everything from business contacts to finding friendship and dates online. It is the first business and social networking service with a contact management system that operates on a "dynamic basis", where members are able to select from dedicated networking communities.

Venture Street Business Network — Our membership includes experienced professionals and business owners interested in expanding their businesses. Our core philosophy is based on relationship marketing. VentureStreet is an exclusive community of professionals interested in marketing and business networking groups. We provide marketing resources, facilitate networking groups, and help foster relationships among our professional members.

Fast Pitch! Networking — Fast Pitch! provides serious business professionals with "no-nonsense" speed networking events in 45 cities across the United States. Two types of events are offered: ONLINE and ON-SITE. Online events allow you to actively "pitch" your business to 15 other attendees in less than 1 hour from the comfort of your own office using our web conferencing format. On-Site events allow you to "pitch" your business in a one-on-one format to up to 40 other attendees in less than 2 hours at a local venue.

Ecademy Business Networking — The business exchange that connects people to knowledge, contacts, support and business. Join the Trusted Business Network now to help you to network across town, across country, and across the globe, all at a time that is convenient to you.

Networking For Professionals — NFP makes business networking easy by connecting you with successful professionals who can best help grow your business, improve your client base and advance your career. At Networking For Professionals you can immediately begin to grow your business by business networking online. NFP saves busy professionals time, money and energy spent making new business connections. With NFP you can easily build your business network from your home or office, whenever it's convenient.

EONetworkInfo — Welcome to the Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) network of New York City. EO is the premier entrepreneur network, with over 5,000 members representing more than $68 billion in revenues. EO New York City is the largest chapter of the largest entrepreneur's network of its kind in the world - all in the greatest city in the world - New York City. Entrepreneurs choose EO for:

Learning and tools that build businesses
The most connected peer network in New York City
Unique, once-in-a-lifetime experiences

eXtreme Networking — Welcome to eXtreme Networking, the pioneer of high-speed networking events that harness pre-collected attendee information to qualitatively couple compatible people. As a producer of traditional networking events and conferences, you can now uniquely compress the impact of multiple wining and dining gatherings into just a few premium-quality hours. Rather than relying on unguided milling about or uninformed seat switching, the fundamental distinction of eXtreme Networking is meetings that only make the most sense.

AmSpirit — AmSpirit Business Connections is a national organization that assists sales representatives, entrepreneurs, and professionals succeed by creating a forum where they can exchange qualified referrals with other sales representatives, entrepreneurs and professionals.

Spoke — Spoke was built to be the ultimate sales prospecting tool. By enabling sales professionals to leverage an extended network of nearly 30 million people at over 500,000 companies, Spoke delivers the information and access needed to get access to new accounts and accelerate the sales cycle.

Southern California Meetings & Mixers — MEETINGS AND MIXERS has quickly become an indispensable resource for Southern California business people to find business meetings, chamber events and networking mixers. You can help us make this site more valuable to you by submitting your favorite business meetings and networking events and mixers to the calendar or organizations to the directory. The listings are free, simply use the forms linked from the new Contact page or also found within each County area.

Jigsaw — An online business contact marketplace where marketers, recruiters, and sales people can buy, sell and trade business contact information. Each member provides a few pieces of the puzzle. Jigsaw assembles them for the benefit of the community. The Jigsaw marketplace offers members access to an online database of fresh and accurate corporate contact information and increases efficiency by shortening the time required to find valuable business contacts.

MediaBistro — Wow, talk about a great site for meeting other content-developers. MediaBistro is dedicated to those who create or work with content, or who are a non-creative professional working in a content/creative industry, including editors, writers, television producers, graphic designers, book publishers, people in production, and circulation departments - in industries including magazines, television, radio, newspapers, book publishing, online media, advertising, PR, and graphic design. The site's mission is to provide online and offline opportunities for meeting each other, sharing resources, becoming informed of job opportunities and interesting projects, improving career skills, and showcasing work.

NetParty (Business & Social Networking Events for Young Professionals) — Provides access to business and social networking events for young professionals. While most of the action take place offline, NetParty, offers an online opportunity to sign up for events in your city to network with each other on a business level and interact with each other on a social level.

BNI (Business Network Int'l.) — BNI is an online business and professional networking organization that offers members the opportunity to share ideas, contacts and most importantly, referrals.

Belonging to BNI is like having dozens of sales people working for you because all of them carry several copies of your business cards around with them. When they meet someone who could use your products or services, they hand out your card and recommend you.* It's as simple as that! It's simple because it's based on a proven concept by BNI Founder, Dr Ivan Misner, called "givers gain." If I give you business you'll give me business and we'll both benefit as a result.

Meetup — Meetup.com helps people find others who share their interest or cause, and form lasting, influential, local community groups that regularly meet face-to-face. We believe that the world will be a better place when everyone has access to a people-powered local Meetup Group. That's our goal. We encourage all Meetup Groups to have a local monthly Meetup that's open to anyone interested. Meetup Group Organizers can schedule Meetups at any place they choose. (If your Meetup is at a place of business, please buy a drink or a cup of coffee to say "thank you" to the venue!)


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