I was at the Utah Social Media Awards last week and had the chance to listen to David Bradford give the keynote address on his experience and expertise in making connections in social media marketplaces.

Here’s the Audio:

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I have have first-hand experience working with David and can attest to his uncanny ability to connect with people; he reached the Facebook maximum limit of 5,000 friends within a few months of starting his account. The amazing thing about David and his many connections is that they are all personal; he can identify each of his friends and in most cases can describe where they work and how they met.

David is a remarkable networker. He is also a very successful businessman, and he credits his success to his connections. In fact, during his keynote he stated emphatically that it’s not ‘What’ you know, but ‘Who’ you know. David says this, too, from a position of authority; he was Sr. VP of General Counsel for Novell for over 15 years and is currently CEO of Fusion-io, an up and coming storage technology company that Wall Street thinks will be bigger than IBM.

So tonight I wanted to share a few tips I’ve learned from David and other successful online networkers.

1. Use Facebook and Twitter: The two most successful online networking environments are Facebook and Twitter by a long shot. There are other tools to use online, and it’s OK to use them, too. But if you are not on Facebook and Twitter, you are missing the boat. They are both free, and if you haven’t gotten on already; get started right now.

2. Be diligent: You’re going to have to work at it, so plan on spending at least 15 minutes a day in your online environment making connections, organizing, and expanding. Successful entrepreneurs I have spoken to spend anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours on social networking. Log in once during the morning hours, and once again later in the afternoon for maximum exposure without spending too much time all at once.

3. Concentrate on connections: Make it a goal to expand your connections. There are a number of ways to do this, but primarily you want to look for people you know and connect to them first, then start making connections with friends of your friends. David makes it a point to collect business cards at every event he attends, and he tries to connect with those people within a day or two. It is not only an impressive tactic, but very effective in creating an ever-expanding circle of valuable connections.

4. Share pertinent content. Let your circle of connections know what you are doing, but be sure to concentrate on what really matters; Let them know of your progress, success, announcements or experiences that are interesting and engaging. Ask your friends for help when it comes to hiring, making plans, or looking for information. Always share your blog posts.

5. Be careful about your opinions: If you are using your connections to build success, remember that when you pick a side you are probably offending about half of your audience at any given time. It’s a good idea to avoid discussions about politics or religion. No matter how neutral you are trying to be, someone will get ruffled.

Building a network of contacts is a rewarding and important facet of your ability to succeed. Some say ‘critical‘. It takes some work and effort, but I couldn’t agree more with David when he says “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know“.

Here’s the Audio:

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Recently I presented a Social Media Marketing Plan at the Social Media Club of Utah Valley (SMCUV). I promised to post the slides from the event.

Here they are, with a few ‘extras’ attached. You can download my presentation as a PDF if you prefer to just look at the pictures.

I took a few minutes to re-record the presentation in a shorter 30-minute version, and uploaded it to YouTube in four parts. I have embedded them at the bottom of this post. Or simply go watch Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 on YouTube.

(Updated…)

If you want to watch the actual presentation video, I captured a terrible recording with my handy-cam and inserted the slides for better viewing in this Social Media QuickTime Presentation. It’s not pretty, but does capture the flavor of a live event. It is a remarkable 55 minutes long; why didn’t anyone stop me!?!

Here are the YouTube videos:

Don’t forget to make comments and spread the word through your own social media communities!

Thank you, —Cary

A Facebook account is one of the most valuable tools you can use as a blogger. Sharing your content with friends and family is the first step in getting the word out that you have new content to read on your blog. This also gives your friends and family an opportunity to support you by posting comments and reposting to their friends.

If you haven’t started a Facebook account, there is no time like the present to get moving. You won’t want to be the last one aboard, and I think we are down to the final ten. If you are one of them, click here to get started with Facebook.

Why do you need a Facebook account? Facebook is a great way to stay connected. You’ll connect with friends and family, reconnect with old buddies, and meet new acquaintances. Most importantly, Facebook is a great way to remain in touch with a larger group than you otherwise could manage. Sharing your blog content with your greater audience of friends is a great way to spread the word, get good feedback, and even test the waters among people who will give you some encouragement.

How to share on your Facebook account? It’s easy, and it’s free. All you need to do is get an account; just visit http://facebook.com and complete a quick form. Look for a few friendly names and you can be up and running in just a couple of minutes. Now all you have to do is ’share’ your content. Sharing is fairly easy, and can be as difficult as copying the URL for your post and copying it to your Facebook account (not really THAT hard), or installing a plugin to provide a simple button that will automatically publish your post to your Facebook account.

A couple of Wordpress plugins that I really like for sharing include Social Bookmarking Reloaded and Add To Any. I like Social Bookmarking Reloaded because it is easy, and allows you to select the specific icons you want to show on your posts. Add to Any is my current favorite because it reads your reader’s browser history and automatically displays the icons they use the most. It also includes an email forwarding option, which is a great idea.

When should you share your posts with your Facebook friends? Every time you have new content on your blog. Plain and simple. Social media marketing is easy to do, but requires diligence in order to be effective. Get in the habit of sharing your posts as often as you create them. Your Facebook friends will become regular followers in no time.

Using FireFox? Use Facebook toolbar to make it even easier to post your blogs to Facebook. I use this toolbar every day and have grown to depend on it because it is so convenient; I can post to Facebook, stay in touch, or make some comments without the hassle. It saves me time and keeps me in the loop.

I talked about Facebook in this week’s tech call with Paul Jensen. Here’s an excerpt:

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