Follow-up or spam?

I am a member of a great networking group on the Wirral called Juice Networking. From tomorrow I will be presenting a five minute slot every fortnight covering social media, real world networking (and anything else which springs to mind).

This is an indefinite gig - or until they get sick of the sound of my voice - and I am posting a few of these "slices of knowledge" (as they are known) on this blog as I go along.

Tomorrow's slot is about something which is much too common: "follow-up" spam.

I have read and listened to a lot of "wisdom" about networking. One of the key points generally an exhortation to "always follow-up". That is, the initial meeting should be just the start of a relationship - not an end of itself.

I totally agree with this, but it so often goes wrong in the execution.

Does this sound familiar? An email lands in your inbox from someone you spent a couple of minutes chatting to at a networking event. It is a standard marketing pitch with your name added in at the top - probably sent to everyone on the list of delegates.

I get this all the time and to me it isn't follow-up... it's just more spam to clog up my inbox. It may not be advertising dodgy pharmaceutical products, but it is unsolicited mail sent indiscriminately and which I haven't asked for or subscribed to (which pretty much fits the definition of spam).

There may not be anything illegal or "wrong" about this approach, but it is likely to do two things. Firstly, the emails go straight in the trash... and secondly it kills off any relationship before it begins. Spam my inbox after our first meeting and you are going to have to work pretty hard to regain my trust or attention in the future.

To me, effective follow-up looks more like this:-

• personal... it's from someone I remember meeting and it references what we spoke about
• relevant... it is sent because there is a reason for us to meet again, talk further or keep in touch. You can't follow-up with everyone and you don't need to - if you don't think you can do anything for them then, really, what is the point?
• constructive... as well as just a "nice to meet you" it has some more information or a link I asked for and suggests the next step in building the relationship
• reliable... if you said at the meeting you were going to do something (pass on an introduction, send a leaflet or whatever) then please, please do it. Nothing is more likely to kill your chance of building a business relationship than failing to deliver right at the beginning

I have seen some great examples of how to follow-up on an initial meeting and most of them covered these four points. These are the emails (or calls or letters) which catch my attention and don't go in the trash. If you are trying to sell me something then this is probably the way to start going about it.

Social media can also be a great way of following up contacts. Twitter in particular allows you to become someone's follower where a follow-up email might be intrusive or "spammy".  There is no compulsion for them to follow back so you are not taking up their time or attention in the same way as with an email.

If their tweets make it obvious that it is worth taking things further, then reply to them with an @message. Provided you are genuinely interested in joining the conversation (and not just broadcasting sales messages) then they will probably be happy to engage with you... build the relationship from there.

If you have any tips for giving good follow-up then please share them in the comments!