📷 Networking when everyone's highly online
How to connect with strangers and coworkers in the remote-hybrid age: Context Collapse #184
Once upon a time, most of my meetings in the journalism, PR, marketing and advertising world were in-person.
Those times were pre-2020 and LOL they’re not coming back. Working in the job I do (running a boutique comms consulting firm, hire us!), a great number of our clients are very happy working from home or only going to the office twice a week and have very little interest in schmoozing at a coffeeshop or hashing proposals out in a hotel lobby bar. New world.
I’m someone who spends ridiculous amounts of time staring at screens and really, really prefers meeting in-person (eye contact! body language! not having a really good conversation ruined by your dumb internet connection buffering!) to talking online. Maybe that describes you, maybe it doesn’t.
So let’s talk about meeting and networking in an age when a whole bunch of people are glued to their screens and your clients/colleagues/etc. don’t want to leave their house.
Running a small agency in the PR/marketing/advertising world, one *huge* business shift I've seen post-2020: 90%+ of my meetings are video chats. My clients largely work from home so I meet them where they're at. Does this impact where our office is based, where I choose to live or how I do business travel? Absolutely.
If I leased expensive office space in downtown Chicago, it'd just be for me: I'd still be Zooming most of my meetings and working with offsite contractors and vendors. Meanwhile, if I go on a business trip to a city like NYC or SF, I'll be lucky if I can do 25% of the in-person networking or sales meetings I could have done pre-2020.
This means optimizing for video chats and learning a few things about lighting and microphones. It means networking online instead of at coffee shops or bars. It also means email newsletters, YouTube videos and even Discord servers play just as important a role in client acquisition as going to an in-person trade show meant a few years ago.
Because I love my readers (and, damn it, I do), here are a few tips I share with my clients for better networking online when you have to do it on a computer screen:
Up Your Video Chat Game:
I strongly recommend that you invest in a high-quality external webcam for your computer; it will make you look a thousand times better in video. CNN has a good list that is current as of January 2023.
I strongly recommend that you invest in either high quality earbuds or an external microphone for your audio. I’m a big fan of Apple and Samsung’s earbuds as well as Beats’ product line. Kevin Purdy at Wirecutter has a good list of tech to check out.
I strongly recommend that you have a friend or loved one do a video call with you in your usual work video call setting and that you ask them for their honest assessment. If you learn that your lighting is off, that the camera angle is imperfect, that audio issues are occuring, that you have a glitchy background or that your surroundings are distracting, take action accordingly.
I recommend that you take some online courses on your video chat platform of choice (Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or G-d have mercy Skype for Business). Specifically, you want to learn about the many settings and options that can help with everything from live captioning to custom backgrounds to connection optimization. There’s a very good chance you have access to classes on LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda) via either your employer or public library card; if not, there are great classes on YouTube.
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Online Relationship Building:
I strongly recommend that you pay close attention to your email tone of voice and how you come across in your replies on social platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter. I came up in business in this very old school environment where I basically had professionalism beat into me and was told that personality was a *bad* thing, but… meh… that era’s over. Pay attention to whether you’re too curt and brief, or overly wordy or unnecessarily either belligerent or apologetic. Having that tiny bit of self-awareness pays huge dividends.
For people in sales/business development positions specifically, there are plenty of offline ways to connect besides in-person meetings. I have a few trusted vendors I rely on for thank you gifts. I have clients who purchase smart swag (coffee cups, water bottles, stuff like that) that genuinely makes inroads. Write smart email newsletters or blog posts people would actually want to read (hello!). Make YouTube videos that aren’t sales related and have a long tail that leads people to check out your website. Be smart.
Find the Slack groups and Discord servers that are related to your field (For instance, Online Geniuses for digital marketing or Creative Mornings Chicago for design/creative folks in the city). Even if you don’t have time to get involved in threads or post, I strongly recommend timeblocking fifteen minutes a day to lurk and see what your peers are talking about.
Different? Abso-damn-lutely. But still worth it.
What else would you add?
Comments = below.
These video tips are good for people who get interviewed by media, too!