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| 5 effective networking strategies in the digital age Posted: 19 Jan 2014 08:00 AM PST  Brian Honigman is a marketing consultant, a freelance writer and a social media enthusiast. This post originally appeared on AdKnowledge. Networking will forever be the lifeblood of a professional's career. No matter how old you are, what year it is and what technology is used, networking will continue to affect an individual's professional growth, in addition to skillset and experience. Not to mention, networking can help you land a job, earn a promotion, perhaps introduce you to your future co-founder and help you remain a valuable asset to your employer and industry. In my own career as a tech writer and marketer, I've been lucky enough to grow by leaps and bounds writing for Forbes, Huffington Post, Mashable (and of course, The Next Web). There are many factors that contribute to my progress, but networking would have to be one of the biggest. One of the most impactful networking moments that helped advance my career was in 2011 when I wrote a story for AllFacebook about successful apparel brands active on Facebook. After publishing the article, a staff member from one of the brands I mentioned, Marc Eckō Enterprises, reached out to me to thank me for the mention and to start an ongoing relationship. After cultivating that relationship for some time, the company eventually hired me to help lead its social media, SEO efforts and other marketing needs. This incredible opportunity was the result of effective networking online that many can duplicate. Technology today allows anyone to scale networking efforts more successfully at greater speeds than ever before with the use of Meetups, LinkedIn, blogging, videos, Twitter chats, Google Hangouts and more. Don't forget that these tools should be used in conjunction with networking offline as well, since they help add to your in-person interactions that are often the most effective at generating a strong bond with your contacts. It's all about creating a large quality network of contacts you can rely on, and who can rely on you. Quality and quantity are important attributes of networking, which are quite difficult to achieve but entirely possible once you've tapped into the right amount of hustle. Don't sacrifice the quality of your contacts for the quantity, but find the happy medium. Here are some strategies to best use the tools available today to network with other professionals in your industry and beyond. 1. Become a LinkedIn powerhouseLinkedIn is the most successful professional social media channel for networking with like-minded people and it's important that you take advantage of its helpful features. Once you've set up your LinkedIn profile and filled it out to its fullest, start connecting with other professionals of interest. The key to getting your LinkedIn invitations accepted is to personalize the message you're sending. This is obviously time consuming, but it's more effective and personal to the connection you're making. Taking the extra few seconds will go a long way towards building a relationship with your new connection. Introduce yourself in the note, explain how you're connected, what you have in common, what you'd like to achieve from connecting and any questions you might have for your new contact. Join LinkedIn groups related to your industry and actively participate. Share content and answer the questions of other group members both publicly and privately. Many are unaware that you can message LinkedIn users that you aren't connected with as long as you are both members of the same group by clicking on the little black arrow near their post in the group. Answer questions publicly first, then message privately with a more extensive answer and to let them know you're willing to help again in the future, if needed. By continually providing value to other LinkedIn users in your industry through this tactic and others, you'll slowly be able to build meaningful relationships and expand your network of contacts. 2. Find job openings, make contacts and learn with MeetupsThe best part about all the online tools at your disposal is that they can help foster offline meetings with online contacts. Meetup is one of the more effective networks for connecting professionals who share similar career interests. Start by joining multiple Meetups in your area that match your expertise, industry and most important, where you want to meet the right contacts. I'd suggest joining Meetups that other industry experts are members of as a good indicator of their quality, while also signing up for a few on your own to see what they're worth and what type of networking events they typically host. Join multiple Meetups to test the waters and attend their events to find the best networking value. I'm the member of 14 Meetups here in New York; they're all related to content, social media, marketing and technology. I don't attend the events of all these Meetups, but I'm able to pick and choose which ones meet my schedule and pique my interest in terms of which panel discussions are occurring, what type of presentation is happening and who will be at each event. 3. Meet someone new every weekTo effectively scale your network and remain valuable in today's ever-changing economy, strengthen your network by meeting someone new online every week. Find these potential connections across social media by searching on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and elsewhere for like-minded people who you think will bring value to you and your network. There's always room to demonstrate genuine interest in others when building your network, says Mika Salmi, the CEO of creativeLIVE, and this notion will only help fuel the success of your daily outreach. Use social media to foster this concern with others by complementing, thanking and being genuine with your network as you continue to expand and meet new people online. In some cases, a full-fledged introduction might not be appropriate with certain contacts and in that instance, interact with them with a lower-risk action like commenting on their Facebook posts, sharing their LinkedIn posts to add your own commentary, re-tweeting their posts to slowly gain their attention, and build rapport by simply telling them they're doing a great job at what they do. Find other people tweeting, sharing content and participating in discussions about topics of interest and proceed to find their contact information. That can mean connecting with them on LinkedIn with a personal note, tweeting them to ask if they'll DM their email address, adding them as a friend on Facebook or to your Google+ circles. These introductions don't need to be high impact, but meaningful and personalized to catch the interest of potential new contacts. 4. Create content at scaleAccording to branding expert Dorie Clark, it's critical that you become known for your ideas and are willing to contribute to the conversations happening in your industry by creating valuable content. As a speaker, consultant and writer for Forbes and the Harvard Business Review, Clark is an example of her very own advice. You can grow your network by conveying your value and worth as a professional by writing articles, creating videos, sharing information across social media or using other media channels. In my career as a writer and marketer, I've written for numerous tech and advertising publications about industry developments, news and how-to guides. That level of visibility within my industry, along with consistent contributions to the overall conversation, has been invaluable. Creating content put my byline in front of relevant people in my industry, which has helped me build a personal brand and a network of lifelong professional connections. Not everyone should be a writer—or even likes writing—but as a professional, it's important that you find your ideal medium. That will help you deliver your perspective online to help foster bonds with your existing and future connections. If you're eloquent, think about publishing your own audio books, starting a podcast or publishing YouTube videos to regularly contribute your professional point of view. As Anita Newton, Adknowledge VP of marketing states in her recent post, the topic of reinvention is incredibly important because career paths are less like a ladder and more like a trampoline. In today's job marketplace, it's critical that you distinguish yourself from your competition, and one way of doing so is by creating original content on a regular basis. 5. The economy of favors is endlessWhen networking, it's always best to give more than you receive. You'll feel better about yourself, see better results and build stronger relationships over time since you aren't always looking for something immediate in return. Perform favors in various forms to offer value to your existing network, as well as new connections. Here are some of examples of the types of favors that help build your network:
Try your best to perform one of these favors once a day, or a few times a week, to provide unparalleled value to your network of contacts. It's an effective way of nurturing your relationships with existing contacts and a way of building an ongoing rapport with new professional connections. Networking is a non-stop commitment that takes a long time to pay off, but in order to reach that point, you'll have to be fully committed to supporting your network and each individual relationship. With an ever-changing landscape for marketers, it is as important as ever to stay up to date on the latest technology, tools, companies and developments affecting your industry. Your network is an ongoing resource to help you stay relevant with the collective knowledge, support and expertise of your contacts. How do you network with others online and offline? What tools have you found most effective?  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Writing novice? 6 best pieces of advice from successful authors Posted: 18 Jan 2014 04:00 AM PST  I've been reading some advice from successful writers lately and exploring what their routines are like to see what I can learn about. Here are six of the most common pieces of advice I came across that have helped me a lot improving my writing here at Buffer. It also features actionable tips for you on how to implement them in your own writing. 1. The best ways to get over the "blank page hurdle"
Unlike Charles Bukowski, writing well doesn't come so easily for a lot of us (including me). It takes a lot of mental energy, strains your working memory and often makes you feel vulnerable if you try to be open and honest in your work. The pure effort of writing is hard enough, but coupled with the pain of putting your work out into the world and letting others judge it, this can be enough to stop you from getting started at all. The trick to overcoming this isn't easy, but it's surprisingly effective: give yourself permission to write badly, and just start. Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird wrote an excellent essay on why writers must start with horrible drafts:
Anne's essay makes me feel much better about the hard work of writing great content, as she makes it clear that all great writers struggle with their first drafts:
So to get over the biggest hurdle—the blank page—just get writing. Don't be afraid that your draft might be bad (it probably will be, but that's okay.)
(Great infographic from Copyblogger) 2. Discard clichés: How to stop writing like "you're meant to write"Down with the cliché! If only it were that easy. Clichés surround us, and it's surprisingly hard to avoid using them.
Clichés dominate our language both in speaking and writing. This is because we hear them all the time, so they become the first phrases that come to mind when we want to express ourselves. Which is exactly why they're a problem:
This actually has a lot to do with how we take in words and phrases when we read. The more familiar a term or phrase becomes, the more often we start skipping over it as we read, rendering it ineffective. The best way to avoid this problem is to use different language to explain familiar concepts. It's a careful balancing act between being so different that your readers are turned off by the effort of understanding your content and being so familiar that your work becomes trite.
3. Don't make it sound like writing, instead "Write like you speak"
Novelist and screenwriter Elmore Leonard knew how important the reader was. More important than his English Composition teachers, that's for sure. He never let "proper" writing get in the way of telling a great story and making it engaging for the reader.
Writing like you speak is harder than it might sound. For some reason, it's easy to "put on" a tone when you start writing, without even realising it. This is something I'm still working on, and it takes a lot of practice. In Kurt Vonnegut's list of rules for writing with style, he explains how much better his writing is when it sounds the way he talks:
One thing that's really helped me to improve in this area is a trick that Leo taught me: imagine someone sitting in front of you as you type, and write as if you're talking to them. 4. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.When I write like I talk, I tend to write long sentences. I can write a sentence that fills an entire paragraph sometimes. Although this might be how the words flow out of my mouth, one of the benefits of writing is that you have a chance to edit your work before the reader gets hold of it. Advertising legend David Ogilvy was a fan of getting to the point without wasting words:
This tip is less about editing (which we'll get to next) and more about keeping things simple. As much as you can, get to your point quickly and use the most simple language you can.
5. Over time, try to write less, not moreAnd now we come to editing. Perhaps the most important thing I've learned about writing, ever, is how core editing is to the process of great writing.
Once you get more comfortable with just getting started and writing a rubbish first draft, you will find that at least as much of the writing process is in the editing, if not more:
Having someone else to look over your work can help immensely in this stage, as can reading your work aloud and letting it sit in-between edits. Most importantly, you'll need to learn to step back from the process of writing and put on your editor's hat. View your draft as objectively as you can, while asking whether it makes a clear point and whether you've used the shortest, most simple words and sentences you can. Kurt Vonnegut has an excellent rule we can all use when editing: Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out. 6. Keep writing, even when it already hurtsLastly, the most important tip there is. I know Leo would agree with me here that the more we've both written, the more we've improved. We've also come to understand more about the process of writing and sharing content over time. When we recently launched Buffer for Business, I remember discussing how the launch post might look like. And at moments like this, even when you're almost out of ideas, to simply keep writing and see what comes is often one of the best ways to come up with a great story, at least,that's how it turned out here. As Jeff Goins says, the secret to prolific writing is practice:
If you want to get better at anything, you have to practice. You have to be disciplined enough to show up when you don't want to, and to keep at it when you've had enough. I think this image says it all: (Another great infographic from Copyblogger) What other tips do you have for bloggers, copywriters and content marketers? What have you learned from your own writing experience? Let us know in the comments. Related: How to cure stage fright: The science behind public speaking  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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