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Facebook for business networking: it’s easier than you might think

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I have a confession: I play, and enjoy playing, Zynga games. That’s right. Vampire Wars? Played it for two years. Then Farmville, and now Frontierville.

I’ll wait for you to stop cringing now. Because this is a business-related post.

Ready? Okay, here’s the thing. Because of these games, I’ve not only gotten closer to several of my business contacts on Facebook, who are also my “neighbors” in the games, but I actually spend more time on Facebook in general – which has led, oddly enough, to at least one of my business contacts pinging me on Facebook to chat about business or new work. Every week. In the last month, I’ve gotten feedback on my resumé, intel on two different agencies I’ve been looking at working with, and two new business inquiries. I’ve also built a Chicken Coop, an Inn, and a Schoolhouse.

There is, of course, a secret to this. I don’t allow the games to post to my Wall without permission, and I limit the visibility of the things I do publish to the folks I’m actually playing the games with, to avoid the inevitable “I hate you” from the various folks that hate the games. But aside from that, it’s really just about being available for a quick chat, and showing that you’re open to taking a casual approach.

I’m starting to think that this is one of the key reasons that more professionals are starting to turn to Facebook for networking. While LinkedIn is wonderful, and still highly useful for researching contacts, and finding leads from specific companies, Facebook has a much more human feel to it. If I find something amusing, I post it to my Wall, and a bunch of my friends comment on it. If I notice that one of my friends is having a birthday, I wish them a happy birthday, and they thank me.

It’s like the difference between the office happy hour and a Chamber networking breakfast. There’s a relaxed undertone to it that makes it easier to make genuine connections, which in turn makes it easier to actually do business together.

Is there a recommendation here? No. I’m not suggesting that playing Farmville will make you a better business person. But I am saying that, if you’re one of those who thinks that networking has to be all business, all the time, you might want to rethink your approach a bit.

How to Lose LinkedIn Connections

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One of the things that has fascinated me about social media lately is the mirror that it holds up to our behavior in specific situations. Each site has its own purpose, its own sense of etiquette.

While I use Facebook a bit for my business (and have been getting quite a few requests for work from it, actually), it’s really become more of a personal outlet for me to share links, bits of fun, etc. with my friends and family. Twitter is for quick thoughts, status updates, and link sharing with my personal and professional network, and for getting answers when I’m stuck on a blog post, or a sticky Drupal/Wordpress problem.

LinkedIn is strictly professional. As I start moving towards the next stage of my career, I’ve started looking at it more, seeing if there are folks in my network who might know the people I want to meet at different agencies and studios. But there’s an etiquette to making the request. If I haven’t talked to someone in a while, I’ll start the conversation by asking how the person is doing, and engaging with them a bit before telling them what I’m up to and asking for the connection.

A couple of days ago, I got a LinkedIn message from a connection I hadn’t talked to in over a year – who Linked with me after the first time I met him and started sending me pitches for his coaching services almost immediately after we connected. After I unsubscribed from his newsletter, I had forgotten about the LinkedIn connection, until I received this message (paraphrased):

“Who do you know who works with a company that hires coaches? Thanks for any connections you can make.”

That was it. No “hey Dani, how have you been? I know it’s been a while.” I don’t even know if it was sent specifically to me, or was blasted to all of his connections. My response? I went into LinkedIn and removed him from my connections. And then I wrote this article.

The lesson here is simple: being online makes it easier to network, but it doesn’t change the basic rules of etiquette. If you want something from someone else, you have to show an interest in them first. You wouldn’t ask someone you just met at a cocktail party to give you a job, so why would you do the same to someone that you barely speak to online?