Who you know is as important as what you can do to succeed in your career. The more connections you have, the more opportunities will land in your lap. However, remote work has made networking more tricky.
Although the internet has rendered geography less relevant, forging meaningful relationships to advance your career is more challenging in cyberspace. Follow these 10 tips to expand your network virtually as a remote worker.
Table of Contents
1. Establish Your Goals
Determine why you want to network. Everyone has motivations, so figure out yours to devise a robust strategy and guide your actions:
- Do you want anecdotal information on how to find gigs as you get your feet wet as a remote worker?
- Are you seeking an internship or mentorship?
- Do you wish to increase your clientele as a freelancer?
- Are you hoping to meet with peers in a particular location as a digital nomad?
- Do you need a reliable support system as an independent contractor?
- Are you exploring new niches and career paths?
Whatever you want to accomplish by building a remote network, make it as diverse as possible. Having connections from various roles, backgrounds, countries and industries can be handy when broadening your horizons.
2. Create Professional Profiles
Separate your private and public social media accounts. Professional profiles can separate your personal and business connections, allowing you to hit your networking goals quickly.
Using a single email address for personal and professional accounts means everything goes to the same inbox. Although email services are feature-rich enough to help you manage your correspondence, keeping either world from crossing over to the other is still an excellent practice from an organization point of view.
Consider maximizing your personal accounts’ privacy settings. Controlling who can see what’s happening in your private life can keep you and your loved ones safe when connecting with as many strangers as possible.
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3. Develop Your Brand
Build a captivating image. Constructing a persona based on false information is inadvisable, but you don’t want to emphasize your less-stellar qualities either. Talk about your capabilities, skills, experiences and interests to demonstrate your value. You want to look professional, trustworthy, credible and approachable.
Maximize the customizability of online platforms, leveraging design elements that reflect your personality, values and virtues. If you have a business site, leave no real estate wasted. Promote yourself, include your portfolio, and share links to your social media accounts and vice versa.
Show your human side by discussing your struggles and failures. Don’t be afraid to display some of your peculiarities.
Those who have difficulty promoting themselves may experience impostor syndrome, so change your internal narrative to conquer self-doubt. Take ownership of the attractive characteristics you’re still working on. They may not be your strong suits yet, but you can build them if you keep practicing.
Building your personal brand from the ground up is an opportunity to introduce yourself to the world as someone worth being in somebody else’s network. Underscore your features without advertising your flaws. Your brand should come across as authentic but not exaggerated. Ensure everything you present is coherent and consistent.
4. Be a Thought Leader
Exhibit your domain expertise to position yourself as an authority in your field. Express your views on trending topics to influence and inspire others. Succeeding in thought leadership captures interest, magnetizes eyeballs toward your work and organically expands your virtual network. Building a solid reputation in your sphere’s subject matter expert takes time, but the doors being a thought leader opens makes it worth it.
If you want to take this route, familiarize yourself with the preeminent thought leaders in your space. Analyze them to identify what makes them authoritative and charismatic, learning about their styles to develop your own. Know the fine line between imitation and mimicry to sound fresh and not be called a copycat.
5. Make a Good Impression
Virtual networking primarily involves conversing with others through chats and in the comments section. Do it long enough and you’ll find yourself video-conferencing your contacts.
Think of a virtual meetup as a face-to-face conversation. Act in front of a camera as you would in front of a person in the flesh, applying tried-and-true verbal and nonverbal communication techniques. Use body language to get your desired results, choosing your behavior carefully.
Whatever your motivation for virtually meeting a contact, you want to be as agreeable as possible. Be mindful of your words, tone, hand gestures, facial expressions, eye movements, and posture to get your message across and avoid giving out the wrong signals.
6. Start With What You Have
Put on your marketer hat and treat connections in your existing network as leads. The warmer they are, the more likely they are to talk to you. Some in your circle are warmer than others, so prioritize those nearest the bottom of the sales funnel because they’ll likely be more responsive.
Touch base with old friends, former classmates, previous colleagues and forgotten acquaintances. Update yourself on their career journeys and other professional pursuits.
If you need a job or plan to put yourself on the market, chat with your existing connections to probe for employment opportunities. Ninety-two percent of business leaders use word of mouth or employee recommendations in recruitment — 43% of them say referred candidates almost always get hired.
7. Expand Your Circle Internally
Reach out to coworkers you don’t regularly interact with. While they may not personally know you, they may be inclined to engage with you once they learn you’re from the same company. Asking them about their role or projects, congratulating them on a milestone or an accomplishment, and talking about a shared interest are excellent ways to build rapport.
Make it a mission to network with one new colleague weekly to grow your contact list. After meeting everyone in the office virtually, target mutual connections to expand your professional remote network. Your association with people they know makes you less of a stranger and more of a friend they haven’t met yet.
8. Join Online Communities
Be part of niche online groups and communities to meet people in the same boat as you are. LinkedIn, Facebook, Slack, Reddit and Discord are popular platforms where various breeds of virtual employees, freelancers, digital nomads, independent contractors, and work-from-home advocates hang out and socialize.
Many online communities are public, but invite-only groups are not uncommon. They’re networking hotspots and a treasure trove of information. Backreading older posts and discussions helps you stay current with trends, learn best practices — such as observing time blocking and embracing deep work — and discover tools to enrich your career.
These corners of the internet are generally safe spaces as long as you respect community guidelines. In addition, there may be unwritten rules you must follow. As a newcomer, observe how everyone interact to determine which behaviors are acceptable and which are not.
For example, most members may frown upon those who share job listings or self-promote. Inadvertently breaching etiquette may not be grounds for banishment, but nobody would want to network with you, defeating the purpose of being there in the first place.
9. Attend Virtual Events
Sign up for online classes, webinars, workshops, meet-and-greets, and conferences to advance your knowledge of a subject and interact with fellow attendees. Only some virtual events are behind paywalls, so you won’t be hard-pressed to find ones with free admission.
Actively participate during Q&A sessions to capture the attention of others. Ask thought-provoking questions to be memorable and come across as someone with substance. Being unforgettable can help you get a favorable response when you reach out to other registrants after the event. People may even approach you if you impress them and find value in being part of your network.
Leaving a cold message is generally awkward. Some event attendees may be less interested in networking, so emailing or DMing them can backfire.
Be professional — introduce yourself, disclose how you found them, state your intention and wrap it up with a “thank you.” You may not get the wording right initially, so tweak the language to polish your messaging and tone until you craft a template that works.r
10. Offer Value When You Can
Demonstrate your usefulness to your connections whenever you get the chance. Successful networkers understand the power of give and take.
Everyone networks to solve their problems. It’s a two-way street, so be sensitive to other people’s needs to compel them to cooperate with you when you need their help. Delighting your contacts can be as simple as reacting to their posts, participating in their polls and answering their questions publicly or privately.
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