The Art Of Following And…Following Up

I’m gearing up for the SAALT Summit taking place in two weeks [where we’re doing a “Speaking with Conviction: Spokesperson Training”] and Stephanie and I were recently at the Social Media For Nonprofits conference in NYC. And this week, it seems like every second person is at NTEN’S Nonprofit Technology Conference.

All of these conferences are wonderful – to learn stuff and of course, to meet people. You come back from the conference on a high, thrilled you’ve made all these new contacts and then you’re greeted by all those pending projects + new things that came up while you were away. Before you know it, those business cards pile up on your desk until one day you shove them into a drawer.

Cartoon courtesy: HubSpot.

Oh, wait, that’s just me? Okay, fine. But if you struggle with translating conference meetings into something more sustained than a “Nice to meet you” handshake, here are my five tips for follow up:

1. My first, basic and yet completely overlooked tip is this: set aside time for your conference follow up. Recognize that if you really want to leverage the conference, you have to, I repeat, have to, make time to follow up afterward. Block off three hours in the three days post-conference for that and you’ll find that the $ and time and energy you spent at conference will actually pay back.
2. Make time beforehand and plan ahead. A week before (or even at the airport), pull out the conference speakers’ list and mark the people or organizations you want to get to know. Follow them on Twitter and like them on Facebook. Say that you’re looking forward to meeting them at the event – a nice way to “say hello” before you say hello in person.
3. During the conference, at the end of each day, spend 20 minutes going through the business cards you’ve collected or just your trusty ole memory bank and get LinkedIn with the people you met. (I don’t recommend finding people on LinkedIn until you’ve actually met them – either online or in person). Then, Follow them on Twitter and/or Like their organizations on Facebook. If you know you especially want to follow up with someone, shoot her/him a one-line email. This way you have their email address in your contacts and the advantage of ‘striking while the iron is hot’, i.e. while they remember you.
4. Once you’re back in the office do these three things in two hours of your precious three-hour slot:
   1. List out the main people you want to stay in touch with (including conference organizers) and send them an email right away. Be specific in why you are reaching out – in other words, why they should care: to set up a meeting, make an introduction, collaborate, etc.
   2. Next send the list to your colleagues and explain who needs to follow up for what reason.
   3. Next, if appropriate – i.e. they will find it useful and won’t be surprised – add the contacts to your email newsletter list. You hate spam so don’t do it to other people.
5. Your third hour of time set-aside is to do this: see who has Linked/Liked/Followed you and do the same. You can also do this “in real time” (Like or Follow people as they connect with you), but it’s worth it to spend a bit of time and learn more about who chose to reach out to you. Some of the best relationships come out of the blue.

It’s really pretty straightforward, but the crux of it is making the time to follow up and then following through! So that’s what I’ll be doing post-conferences. What about you?