Getting Everyone Engaged in An Online Networking

As the nature of business networking is to increase revenue, most entrepreneurs and thought leaders value a strong relationship with other like-minded professionals they meet during a networking event.

With the recent pandemic impacting the world of enterprise, it could be relatively challenging to establish a memorable bond in online networking. That being said, you have to make sure that all participants are engaged to optimize online networking.

This requires a few basic rules and being proactive throughout the session, and this will help in transforming them into a potential business partner. Here’s of how it will work.

Utilize video calls

Most business professionals have little to no difficulty getting results in a networking event. The familiarity with body language and facial expressions is a natural factor to create an instant connection. To obtain a similar experience with face-to-face networking, utilizing video is necessary to feel the presence of every participant in the same room.

The principle to take note is that, making eye contacts create an invitation to the recipients to be engaged in the conversation. There would be a high chance your potential business partners lose interest in the conversation if there are no visual contacts. This disrupts the flow of communication.

Video calls mimic the experience of the in-person connection. It encourages participants to signal facial expressions to convey their responses that summons for a reply leading to an exchange of dialogue.

Create human connections

To build a world-class network that revolves around the digital world, powerful tools and platforms like Linkedin can be a great way to establish human connections. As opposed to face-to-face networking, these platforms can still be beneficial in establishing a human connection from the start.

You can use it to your advantage to identify the participants’ backgrounds through their professional LinkedIn profile and company website, primarily to matchmake their interest with your expertise. To some extent, this is a source to break the ice within the first 5 minutes in the online networking session.

This helps to create a comfortable atmosphere for everyone to be able to open up and actively participate in the conversation.

Exploit interactive approaches

Building a connection with high-profile thought leaders requires considerable different approaches to stay engaged. Alternatively, leveraging on the tools provided at the platform could be useful to encourage ongoing conversation.

One of the best ways to engage the participants is through interactive polls to spark interest and represent their opinions. This encourages them to be more responsive during the conversation.

You can also use screen sharing to project your points precisely to attain effective communication. This is the time where you could be more creative and include gamification or other fun activities to keep everybody engaged and active.

Act as a moderator

Online networking for business growth can be frustrating sometimes. More often than not, some people tend to be more talkative and longwinded throughout the session. Hence you can take a step forward to act as a moderator and control the conversation.

As part of an effective and pleasant networking strategy, utilize your persuasion skill to keep the energy of the conversation flowing by limiting the spotlight of each individual. A 5-minute rule could be practical in this scenario where everyone is allowed to speak within 5-minute periods.

Try inviting conversations to create engagements with participants by regularly asking open-ended questions. This requires individual inputs that encourages everyone to articulate and voice out their perspectives.

Have a roundtable discussions

It takes more than a single communication to leave a memorable encounter while networking. Hence, the common thing to practice is by initiating a roundtable discussion about the keynotes or presentations they have attended. Networking discussions, such as our Campfire sessions, bring peer-to-peer networking to a more exclusive experience.

Plan ahead and utilize these platform to encourage two-way conversations – from takeaways in earlier sessions to the implication on each other’s business operations.