Someone starts following you on Twitter. You connect with someone on LinkedIn. Someone wants to be your friend on Facebook. These are all ways to start conversations. Very easy to do. This is the equivalent of playing Tennis with someone. You hit the ball to them or they hit the ball to you. Now in order for the game to be fun, the ball must go back and forth.

The same is true in Social Networking. The conversations must go back and forth.  The key to succeeding in Social Networking is to find ways to keep the conversations going.

Some people focus too much on getting conversations started and not enough on keeping the conversations going. They boast large numbers of “friends” or connections. However unless they find a way to continue the conversations after they are started, the game will not be much fun (or productive.)

I will explore ways to do this in future posts.

There is a good chance that if you are new to Social Networking, you might have heard about Twitter. Out of the many different Social Networking platforms, I find Twitter to be one of the most elusive ones to grasp and use. The following article by Jacob Morgan on The Value of Twitter offers some great insights. Be sure you read it if you are curently using (or planning to use) Twitter.