What do you do if your professional network in management needs expanding through social media platforms?

To expand your professional network in management through social media platforms, optimizing your profiles is a fundamental step. This means ensuring your profiles across platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and industry-specific forums are not only up-to-date with your current position, skills, and accomplishments but also tailored to highlight your interest and expertise in management.

Update profiles to reflect expertise. Engage by sharing valuable content. Connect strategically with relevant professionals. Join industry groups for networking. Share insights through articles or posts. Attend virtual events for networking. Offer help and nurture relationships. Follow up regularly to maintain connections.

To expand your professional network using social media, start by getting your own profile in order. - Make an effective headline, keep it short and order the keywords that best describe you, professionally. - Customize your banner. This takes minimal effort, but makes you 100x more interesting than a default banner. - Put up a photo. Like it or not, people respond to an image 100x more positively than a default blank. - Write an effective summary profile that says a lot in a few words. If you are young, focus on your aspirations. If you are experienced, focus on themes and qualifications in your background. - Keep the "resume" section short, crisp and focused. Drop a fact or two about each experience, but don't write a full resume.

Expanding your professional network through social media platforms is an effective way to connect with industry peers, potential employers, and other professionals in management roles. Here are some steps to optimize your profiles on social media platforms: LinkedIn Optimization: Complete your profile: Ensure your LinkedIn profile is complete with your current job title, summary, work experience, education, skills, and relevant certifications. Use a professional photo: Select a high-quality, professional headshot as your profile picture. Engagement and Networking: Actively engage with your connections by commenting on their posts, sharing valuable insights, and congratulating them on achievements.

Engagement should be regular and should be kept consistent in 1) cadence, 2) content, 3) themes. Cadence means "figure out how often you will contribute to the community and try to keep it regular." Can you post once a week and add likes and comments to other posts twice per week? Can you do more? Figure out something that works for you and stick to it for at least a month and assess progress. Content means "what are you going to talk about." Don't just talk about one thing. Don't just talk about your company or one product all the time. Try to find a balance of 4-5 topics you can comfortably post on. Themes means "keep posts and comments on-point for your professional persona and create common threads across your Content."

Participate in Discussions: Join industry-related groups and forums on platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook. Contribute to discussions by sharing your insights, asking questions, and offering advice. Engaging in meaningful conversations demonstrates your expertise and helps you connect with like-minded professionals. Comment and Share: Regularly engage with posts from your connections and industry influencers by leaving thoughtful comments and sharing valuable content. This not only helps you stay top-of-mind but also fosters meaningful relationships with your network.

I recommend picking 10-15 "hashtags" that you populate across your Content and Themes. On Social Media, you're becoming a content creator. You are creating content when you post, comment on posts, and even when you "like" other posts. Hashtags should be relevant keywords that route your content to people who may be interested in what you're talking about. Pay attention to people that are talking about the same topics you talk about who have 2,000+ followers and use similar hashtags. Don't invent new hashtags that others in your aspirational peer group aren't using. Your first goal is to get your content correlated into the same eyeball groupings as the peers you aspire to be associated with on Social Media.

Research Relevant Hashtags: Before using hashtags, research popular and relevant hashtags related to management, leadership, and your industry. Look for hashtags commonly used by professionals in your field and those frequently associated with trending topics and discussions. Mix Broad and Specific Hashtags: Incorporate a mix of broad and specific hashtags in your posts. Broad hashtags like #Management or #Leadership can reach a larger audience, while specific hashtags like #StrategicPlanning or #ChangeManagement target a more niche audience interested in specific topics.

If you're trying to build an audience and use Social Media as a business tool my suggestion is to accept most requests for connections that are coming inbound. Should you filter out obvious 'trolls' and fake profiles - yes. Should you filter out everyone who isn't a celebrity or C-level - no. Be more careful with your outbound connection strategy. Be realistic about who you are connecting with. You will get best results if you send a short message with your connection requests. If you are selling something, be up-front about it. If you aren't, make it clear you are just expanding your professional network. You'll connect to more people if you interact with their content ("like" or "comment") prior to sening an invite.

A great way to build your network is to send connection requests to professionals in your target community who interact positively with your content. When someone interacts with your content it's a show of interest or an endorsement of what you're saying. A sensible next step is to send a connection request with a simple thanks for the "like" or the "comment". Another way to boost connection requests is to personalize your message by indicating that you also find their content interesting or that you look forward to seeing more of their posts in the future, Etc.

Follow up leads to success. Interactions shouldn’t start to gain a simple transaction. Most interactions and possible transactions in the future will require timing, quality balancing of each others equations and ultimately trust.