Networking is about the people, not the medium

Lawyers and law firms focus too much on the mediums when it comes to social media.

Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and now, Pinterest. Should we use this one or that one? How do we use it? Do we use it for personal use versus professional use?

Marketing Strategist, Chris Brogran (@chrisbrogran), writes to forget about the medium, it’s the people you’re looking to connect with that you ought to focus on.

We seek to connect with people. We want to reach them for whatever our goal might be. It’s our effort to connect with them in a meaningful way that benefits our mutual needs that should be the goal. It’s never about the delivery mechanism.

…Who follows whom on Twitter isn’t all that interesting. What we do with those connections is why it matters. How we take our access and make something interesting happen-that is the goal.

Again, it’s not whether I follow you or not. It’s whether something I do can improve your business or goals, and it’s whether you can share something or introduce something, or riff on something, or whatever. It’s how we use the network to build a system. It’s how we make our platform shine to help others, to grow our business, and more. That’s the magic.

The mediums themselves are just tools for networking and building relationships. Whether they’re traditional (Rotary meetings) or new (Google+), doesn’t matter. How you use these mediums to build relationships is the key to your business development success

Brogan asks, “So is Pinterest the new amazing network?”

It will be, for those who use it to build a relationship that goes beyond the pins. Any network is serviceable, if you learn how to interact and help people satisfy their needs.

Well said.