Source: www.indiatimes.com/While we connect with more and more people online, it is becoming more challenging to connect offline. Social media platforms offer great ways to form relationships, but cannot replace certain benefits of in-person networking. Face-to-face communications allow parties to engage in both verbal and non-verbal behavior that may not be captured using technology.
Last week, my name memory once again failed me when a new acquaintance asked me whether I knew a certain person.
“Susie Apple? I think I met her before… the name definitely sounds familiar. Let me check if we are connected on LinkedIn.”
I’m sure most of us have been in this situation, which shows the shallow relationship of a typical online connection. The benefits of in-person networking lead to deeper, more meaningful relationships with fewer people, rather than brief encounters with countless connections.
Read this: 10 Tips to Help You Do Better Interviews
Benefit 1: Stay Memorable by Meeting In-Person
As demonstrated in the LinkedIn example, I am embarrassingly terrible with remembering names. If I meet someone in person, I remember his or her face, which is more recognizable than the filtered social media headshot that was taken four years ago.
In a post earlier this week, we examined the impact that social media is having on our engagement with communities. People tend to multi-task and stay dependent on their mobile devices throughout the day. When we are on social media, we are constantly interrupted and often rushed in our communications, but face-to-face communications force us to focus our attention and slow down a bit.
Meeting someone in person also raises the chance to share personal stories and discover common hobbies or other similarities that make you more memorable.
Benefit 2: Personal Connections Lead to Business Conversions
Would you be more likely to recommend someone you briefly connected with online or someone you met through a professional membership organization? Personally, I would trust someone more if we had met in person, even if the content in the communication exchange was the same for both.
When you speak to someone, you typically look in their face and observe their body language. Eye contact and offline gestures make it easier to build trust and come to an agreement. A firm handshake, confident posture and friendly smile can make the small difference to accept an agreement.
Source: blogs.psychcentral.com/Benefit 3: Face-to-Face Communications are More Efficient
Online messaging makes it easy to connect to someone, but it’s not the best way to have discussions or make business deals.
It’s often challenging to break through someone’s busy schedule, but an in-person meeting has already accomplished this step. An email or online message may only get divided attention, or it could get bookmarked to be reviewed at a later time – and even worse, maybe forgotten altogether. In-person meetings happen in real time, while technology-mediated communications may be delayed or temporarily disrupted.
Start Networking Offline
Now that we have covered the benefits, the question is how to start offline networking. Several companies, including MeetUp – a global facilitator of social groups based on shared interests that’s over 10 million strong – invite you to join meetings based on your interests and connect with others in your community. Many membership organizations also open up certain events or meetings to nonmembers with a slightly higher cost. Another way is to use your online network, select a handful of local connections based on job, industry or interest, and invite them for a cup of coffee.
Start with selecting one or two local individuals from your LinkedIn page and invite them to meet in person next month. Good luck!
