Jun

Introverts, Networking, and Social Media

Yesterday the New York Times published a piece called Networking for the Shy Entrepreneur. It covered the basics: don’t try to sell, be yourself, think of it as “relationship-building” instead of “networking.” Nothing much new there, and nothing that really helps an introverted IT professional when he or she is dragged to the monthly Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

Here’s another tip.

As introverts, we are much more comfortable interacting with others on our own terms — via email, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. The nice thing with these tools is that we can read the incoming message, take our time to compose an answer, and then return it at leisure. But think about this: Aren’t you “building relationships” when you do this? If you have exchanged tweets with someone over a period of several weeks, won’t it be much easier to walk up that person at the next monthly meeting and say, “Hi, I’m 2fishweb on Twitter. You helped me find a local programmer last week when I ran into a problem.”

I’ll be at the July meeting of IPSA in Birmingham, Alabama. I’ll be very comfortable approaching a couple of people whom I have “met” through Twitter in the last couple of weeks. I don’t have to be their best friend, but I won’t have that sinking fifth-grade-wallflower feeling about being there, either.

Give it a try. Twitter is good for business… and may turn out to be good for your peace of mind in uncomfortable settings, too.