Building Quality Connections to Enhance Your Career with Three Tips

Monica Carter Tagore reports for Joanna Penn:

"Social media encourages us to amass the largest followings, but building a smart writing business isn’t about collecting the most people. It’s about connecting with the most. Connecting with contacts turns you from simply a name on a friends list or mailing list, to a relationship. And it’s the relationship that actually makes things happen. Relationships mean help requests get answered, favors get performed, and partnerships come together. And for authors, they mean promotional campaigns get built. If you are a freelance writer, author, blogger, or other content producer, relationships can help you grow your business. Relationships multiply your efforts because they mean you can enlist the help and support of others who also want to see you succeed...It’s tempting to try to hide who you really are in some vain attempt to pretend to be someone else or blend in so you don’t upset anyone. But hiding who you are doesn’t do much for making you stand out to your contacts, in the long run...Go for authenticity. Share who you really are in your social media updates, blog posts, and other marketing activities...[by] speaking in your voice when you communicate, and not in some watered down attempt at pretending to be someone else. Your authenticity will resonate with your contacts and make them remember you. And those who truly identify with your message — what you are actually saying, the story you are telling, and the way you tell it — will connect with you. They will respond to your emails, retweet your posts, visit your blog. They will come back again and again. Looking for you...What makes your writing business different from the next one? It’s the story. What is your story? What’s the story of your business?...Did you come to this line of work because of a particular cause or experience? Do you write a certain type of book or about a certain issue because of something that happened in your past? Have you learned from a certain experience a lesson that can help others? Telling your story may be about sharing your hopes, goals, and dreams in the context of your writing business. Sometimes this can be shared in the About page of your company’s website. Sometimes it can be shared in a blog post. Oftentimes, it is shared in a variety of ways — your blog posts, your speaking, your creative projects...Make your writing business or book about more than the writing and the book. Make it about the story. Tell a compelling story, and you’ll have clients and readers who identify with what you say, maybe because they have had a similar experience. Your shared experience will be the basis of your relationship. In some instances, that connection can be so strong that your readers will seek to become ambassadors or advocates for you, telling their friends, family, and contacts about you and your work because they identify so strongly...If you are a freelance writer looking to grow your writing business, or you are an author looking to grow your audience, then why not help others do the same? Are there writers in your community, on your friends list, or on your mailing list who need help? If you see someone tweet a question and you have the answer, then reply with the answer. Or if you see another author on social media working to promote her work, then why not lend a hand? Retweet the link to your followers or share a post on Facebook. Your generosity will likely be noticed. This author will see the way you’ve extended yourself to help and may drop you a thank you note or retweet. This exchange can be the beginning of a new relationship...Maybe you two decide to do cross promotion, where you each share with your readers news about the other. Or maybe you two decide to team up for some other effort that can help both of you...When you turn a person from a contact into a connection, you open the possibility of a relationship as you two get more familiar with and trusting of each other. Whether you have a large social media following or a small one, you can use these tips to build a more intimate connection with those who follow you, or those you follow."