Networking events are all about connecting with others, engaging, networking and starting to build up a strong working relationship. However, to be able to build up that strong working relationship you need to speak to people for more than 1 minute at a time and thrusting a business card in their hand as you walk post certainly won’t help either.

Unless you can spend a good 20-30minutes with each person at a networking event, you will not be able to properly connect with each person. And if you were able to spend 20-30 minutes talking to every single person in the room it would either be a very long event or very few people at the event.

However – we have a plan of action for you, going forward!

Next time you attend a networking event switch on the ‘Find Nearby’ within Linkedin and you will be able to see all the other people that have switched their ‘Find Nearby’ on too. You can then connect with them on Linkedin so you can chat at a later date, or ask where they are, track them down and have a good chat with them.

To turn on your ‘Find Nearby’ just follow these instructions; it’s super simple!

How To Use ‘Find Nearby’ on Linkedin

  • Go to Linkedin, click on My Network (this will be an icon if two heads).
  • Above your ‘invitations’ and ‘people you may know’ you’ll find ‘Find Nearby’ marked as (OFF)
  • Click on that icon and you will turn the icon on – it will then search for people with the application switched on that are near you / at the event.
  • You cannot leave this icon switched on and it will only work while you are on that page; this saves your battery life on your mobile device but also means you don’t connect with random people wherever you go.
  • Then click on those people to connect; explain in your intro message that you are also at …event, where you are and that it would be great to connect.

Not only does this enable you to take your online connections offline, but it also means that you can connect and network further with those you meet or may have missed at events.

The more people talk about this brilliant the tool the more it will be used; so get sharing and telling people!