How To Take Your Network And Make It Useful Part 2

Online connectivity has magnified our ability to accumulate social capital and convert it into other forms of power. If you cannot find a way to use this social capital, then it’s hard to make it work for you. My recommendation to you is to map your contacts and convert this information into knowledge that you can apply to your advantage.

Now that you have consolidated all of your contact information into a single spreadsheet, as I discussed last week, you can launch communication campaigns that convey new ideas, information about upcoming initiatives and emerging opportunities for collaboration. Begin with one preliminary announcement and you will see how easy it is to activate your social capital through affordable on-line tools.

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Yields multiple servings of useful information.

Ingredients:

• Your consolidated spreadsheet of contact information.
• Free trial membership to email marketing software like Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, etc.

Directions:

• Import your spreadsheet of contact information to your email marketing account.
• Design a basic letter that summarizes your new initiative and provides your current contact information.
• Personalize your “mass email’ by including your contacts’ first and last names.
• Confirm the clarity of your text and the functionality of any embedded hyperlinks.
• Preview your letter and make any necessary final adjustments.
• Circulate your first message to all of your email contacts.

Once you launch your first communication campaign, the software will inform you about the delivery rate of your email. Email accounts do not live forever and you will be surprised how many of your contacts’ personal and professional email addresses have changed. Instantaneously the software will be able to provide a listing of inactive email addresses that you can download for your records. Take the time to remove inactive email addresses from your spreadsheet of contact information and follow up with your contacts through other means to determine another working email address.

It only takes less than an hour to reorganize your contacts and launch your first message. However, within 24 hours you will be able to determine your readership rate as well as how readers interacted with your message (i.e., by clicking links or forwarding the message to others). Aim to achieve a greater than 10% readership rate  and then analyze who among your contacts distinguished themselves as the first ‘active readers’ of your initiative.

Now you are ready to launch a more complex on-line communication campaign that links your other social networking tools like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Joseph P. A. Villescas, Ph.D. is an independent consultant, writer and instructor. He conducts extensive investigations on Latino and other multidimensional populations that explore trends in their educational development, media consumption, internet usage, voting behaviors, racial categorization, organizational capacities and readiness for future leadership roles in community settings. He is also the founder and owner of Villescas Research, Media & Instruction, LLC.