Over on the Stealth Networking Blog, Liz Lynch writes about networking apathy and ways to overcome it. Sometimes people who struggle with networking resist it because they feel the process is unnatural and puts them in situations where they are not comfortable. The key is to find communities that are aligned with who you are and what you are passionate about, rather than morphing yourself into someone you are not, just to get into the networking scene. When you network within a group where you feel there is a common bond or interest, authentic relationships, information sharing, and reciprocity will naturally follow. You connect with members of the group because of the affinity, but that affinity may be leveraged later on to garner information about other topics of interest to you, including your job search. Here are a few suggestions for networking sites that are off the beaten path from LinkedIn or Facebook, but can still provide enormous value to job seekers because they are based on an affinity relationship.
Classmates www.classmates.com
Classmates enables users to locate and interact with friends from elementary school, middle school, high school, trade school, college, graduate school, or the military. One of the features I love about Classmates is that users can search on a maiden name, so it’s easier to find people than if you were using that same name in a traditional search engine. The free level of membership lets you create bulletin board notes on your profile for others to read, read stories and Q&As posted by members, and view photos. The gold membership lets you see where your friends live now, send and see emails, track who visits your profile, and plan reunions and events.
Military Planet www.militaryplanet.com
Military Planet is a social network for past and current members of the military. Through the buddy search feature, members can search for each other based on a branch number, unit category, location, or station. Members can communicate with each other by blogging or posting messages on forums.
Living Social www.livingsocial.com
Living Social lets you catalog your interests, browse what your friends enjoy, and find others with the same interests as you. The communities include reading social, tune social, reel social, dining social, gaming social, and drinking social. Your account can be linked directly to Facebook, Hi5, Bebo, and other social networking sites.
Work It, Mom is a community for working moms to share their experiences, advice, and support. Members can ask questions to the group, view blogs that deal with work/family balance, read and write articles, participate in and create groups, view and vote on news articles on topics that affect working moms, and purchase products and services that working moms want and need.
Weight Watchers www.weightwatchers.com
Weight Watchers members have access to a number of message boards where they can post questions, tips, recipes, observations, and recommendations. There are different groups to join based on age, lifestyle, and weight loss goals, and several of the threads focus on keeping members encouraged and motivated. Members often rely on these boards for inspiration and it’s also a way for people who attend the program’s face to face meetings to continue the dialogue and rapport-building in between meetings.
Digg www.digg.com
On Digg, users can submit and vote on their favorite articles, videos, or podcasts. Users can then build a network by inviting friends or finding them on Digg. Friends can track what others are “Digging” or share opinions by commenting on the items they “Digg”. Users can also create a profile and add links to pages on Facebook, MySpace, their blog, or their own favorite web pages.
