My three-step guide to get you online
Yesterday, I wrote about the need for men in today’s society to take their networking online and use the social-media tools available to them to enhance their personal and business prospects.
Here is my suggested three-step guide to get you online, exchanging ideas and making contacts:
Networked Man 1.0 – During your first month, create a platform
• Define the topics that concern you, or that you want to have influence over in the future.
• Gain an understanding of the basic mechanisms for influencing people in the social-media world; for example, read Digital Leader – 5 Simple Keys to Success and Influence by Erik Qualman.
• Establish Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts and start to “listen” to a handful of people you trust.
• Start measuring your influence score with Klout, Kred and PeerIndex to see where you start from, and you will be delighted to see progress soon.
Networked Man 2.0 – Follow your influencers, 15 minutes a day for the first three months
• Start reading a few blogs on a regular basis, and pay attention to how they are written, and take inspiration from Heidi Cohen’s blogs on blogging.
• Get a deeper understanding of how digital influencing really works; for example, read Return on Influence: The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing by Mark Shaefer.
• Start retweeting tweets/links/pictures that you like on Twitter and/or LinkedIn
• Play around with possible tools – for example, WordPress, tumblr, Blogger, Pinterest, Gentlemint and foursquare – that could help you convey your thoughts.
Networked Man 3.0 – Start influencing for two focused hours a week
• Find a storytelling format that suits you, and stick to it. The art of writing is like cooking using basic skills and tweaking each dish from the base.
• Identify a young woman interested in becoming your digital mentor. Daughter, co-worker or friend – it does not matter. Be open to their ideas on how you can best convey your points.
• Start blogging or sharing pictures about a topic you like; we are all experts on something. Spread the links to your blog through your Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn accounts.
• Start making your own comments to the links you retweet, and do it daily.
Written by Peter Linder
Peter Linder is Solution Principal in North America and a Networked Society evangelist for Ericsson. When talking about a connected future, Linder likes to blend global perspectives with personal reflections. He is passionate about articulating and visualizing the future Networked Society and possesses 28 digital devices, seven of which are normally connected to a network. His interest in innovation stems from his grandfather, who dabbled in home networking in 1929, spent 30 percent of his house construction budget on a gramophone in 1931, and produced 16mm color films of his children in the 1930s.
