When working remotely, it can be difficult to network and build up career skills when there is less opportunity to participate in large, in-person conferences and training. To combat this disadvantage, we have compiled our best networking tips to help you connect with your peers, former colleagues, and discover new opportunities.
Here are our top 10 networking tips to make the most of your time working remotely.
- Refresh your “elevator pitch” to reflect your current work role and accomplishments. You want to effectively answer, “So, what have you been up to?” Refer to our previous post on this subject “5 Ways to Network While at a Party” for more information.
- Review and update your LinkedIn profile. Take a good look at your work role, accomplishments, and communities over the past year and make those edits. Also, update your photo, if you have a better one.
- In your profile, on the top right-hand side, LinkedIn has a tab called “Notifications.” These are updates from your current connections. It is an easy way to see what they have been up to and for you to reconnect with a direct message. These can be simple messages such as “Happy Birthday” or “Congratulations on your new position. I wish you continued success.”
- Send out LinkedIn invitations to potential connections. The platform does an excellent job of giving you suggestions based on your current and prior work or school affiliation. We are opposed to doing mass invites. Instead, always add a personal message when asking for the connection and reference how you are associated. For example, your message could read like this: “Hi. I hope this finds you well. Do you remember the time we worked together before? I look forward to connecting with you.” Your invitations will not all be accepted. That is okay. Please do not let this stop you. Because even if someone does not respond, your message was delivered directly.
- If you are in the market for a new job, make your job alert selections on LinkedIn so you will be notified of new opportunities of interest.
- Review all of your social platforms and refresh your content, add updates, and comment on the posts of your friends and followers.
- Determine what new skills you need to gain this year and take a look at virtual training opportunities, like Coursera.
- If you are not on LinkedIn or other social platforms regularly, send out personal emails, make phone calls, or set up a teleconference with people you have not connected to in a while. We are sure they will appreciate hearing from an old friend or colleague like you. By the way, we like the Zoom platform for one-on-one virtual meetups.
- If you are an entrepreneur, keep your customers and partners informed about your business operations. For example, emphasize your delivery options or add a benefit such as free shipping, if that is affordable in your business model. Also, if you are experiencing any supply issues, let your customers know that too. The whole idea is to keep your sales pipeline healthy by engaging your customers continually.
- Take the time to review your marketing plan for the rest of the year. Given all of the uncertainty right now in the economy, take our free 7-Day Marketing Plan Refresh Challenge. We find spending a bit of our time looking outward into the wider world gives us inspiration and new ideas to grow our business and our personal lives. On a more tactical level, you may find the need to update your promotion plan or your suppliers and partners.
We wish you the best of luck and hope our networking tips are helpful. Happy virtual networking and skill-building!
The Marketing Plan Refresh
A well-thought-out marketing plan will help you to win new fans, readers, and buyers.
To help you get started on your marketing planning, we are introducing our 7-Day Marketing Plan Refresh Challenge.
In this free, 7-day challenge, some of the key elements that you'll work on include the following:
- Analyzing your results from last year and the lessons you learned
- Deciding on your goals and marketing budget
- Selecting your target market and your product/service offerings
- Planning out your promotions to reach your customers and more prospects
- Creating new ways to increase the number of ways people can buy from you
Once you have signed up for the challenge, you will receive seven emails in total–one per day. Plus, you will receive a free companion 18-page workbook that we created especially for this challenge!
Lucy Briggs is an entrepreneur, social media marketing specialist, and co-founder of Brand Marketing Tips and Briggs + Briggs Marketing Services.
