Connecting to someone in school, college or office is not same as igniting real business conversations. A classmate who may have been of great importance to you won’t matter much as you attempt to take your step to make a successful begin.
Similarly, connecting with new people on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and other social networking websites, all ‘ADD ME’ type groups may find you a lot of new friends but they won’t give you any benefit in making good business deals.
The reason is, in business networking space, it is very important to figure out whom to choose and why to connect. Hence one important thing in doing startup networking on social media websites is to find your target audience and right people to connect with.
For instance, You want to startup online, though, how often do you cross paths with a startup guru?
So be enthusiastic to reach out and engross with right people on social networks, instead of just adding more and more friends and posting out promotional links everywhere.
Bad social networking may waste a lot of your time whereas a good networking may find you right people, more scope and possibilities.
Keep in mind that networking alone will not help you lot, you must sell something and make continuous efforts in marketing. It is a skill that comes with time so do then redo your actions to get them refined over time.
How to find your target audience on social networks?
You may use search box to find right groups, communities, pages of your target audience.
Search boxes, are not very good in finding right people, the reason is search boxes on social websites finds people by name and not by interest.
One possible solution to this problem is first find groups, pages and hashtags of your niche and then connect with right people from there.
Groups on most social networking websites provide an easy way to collect common interest people, allow them to connect with each-other and start new discussions. You should search for some quality groups, join them and take part in conversations to increase your reach and know your audience.
Hashtags also work on some websites. They are less used on Facebook and more on Twitter and Google Plus. With hashtags, especially on Twitter you can reach from people to the largest multinational corporations. This way you can start or join conversations and interact directly with brands & customers.
Fan Pages, create a fan page of your startup on all popular social networking websites and for better networking, also like some other pages (the popular ones) from your field.
Then pay a close attention, specially on comments to know the market and audience you are planning to target with your startup.