Networking

Part of the entire process of developing more work for myself is the networking thing. I’ve almost certainly whittled on about this before- and almost certainly will do again- but it’s something I have to keep doing, and it’s interesting (to me, if no-one else) to see how things develop.

I’ve been a member of LinkedIn for about a year now, as well as Freelancers.Net and Cambridge Refresh.

In addition, I’m now working on getting added to more local networks, like the “Produced In Norfolk” and “Norfolk Network” sites, both of which seem to cater for the kind of things I’m doing. I think the real downside of this is that it all costs – although that’s OK so long as it gets some business coming back in. If it doesn’t, then it’s probably not worth renewing come 2009, I suspect. Then again, that’s all part of the big adventure, discovering that works, what doesn’t, which contacts are good, which aren’t.

The thing is, while I’ve made contacts through things like LinkedIn and Freelancers.Net, I haven’t had any business from them. In fact on that score I’d say LinkedIn is worse, because at least on Freelancers I can still ask and answer relevant questions, and build up the “brand recognition” of my company name due to the Google indexing of the forum, whereas with LinkedIn it’s more about making contacts without the extra “brand” cachet.

In fact, all my actual business in 2006 and 2007 has been generated by either personal contacts, word of mouth, or recommendations from clients and agencies where I’ve got a pre-existing relationship. So that says to me that actually while the “brand recognition” stuff from the forums is useful for “references”, it’s still the personal networking side that generates the actual business.