Tips on How to Grow Your Professional Network Analyzed in Social Networks Context
Article: 4 Can’t-Fail Ways to Grow Your Professional Network
Link: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246644
Professional networking is a lifelong game, and successful entrepreneurship specifically requires strong foundations of industry connections. Entrepreneurs.com is an authoritative channel for entrepreneurs to share latest industry updates and discuss industry best practices. This article gives an in-depth analysis on how to best grow one’s professional network. According to the author, the process consists four steps: 1. Making a list of everyone you know 2. Expand your list of friends of friends 3. Grow your list over time 4.See and be seen. Although many of these tactics seem intuitive and self-explanatory, all of which can be best explained through nodes, edges, and ties and is further validated by the triadic closure theory.
Step one, the author suggested making a list of everyone in your personal network. To best execute this, we can utilize the network graphing skills – each individual will be a node and you are connected with each through edges. Next, proceed to step two and plan out how to expand your network. The author suggested asking a few of your friend to set up a gathering and introduce you to someone you’d like to do business with. This echoes the triadic closure theory, in which when an individual has strong ties with two parties (A has strong ties with B and C) then it is natural for the two parties to connect and form a triangle (so B and C will connect and close the triangle) Forming triadic closures in your network further strengths your connections and exposes you to more resources. Third, we need to focus on growing our list. The author makes a point of keeping a constant interaction with close connections and maintaining a distant yet professional communication with the non-essential connections. This exemplifies the strong triadic closure property theory. Assuming you are the only connection between the hotel industry and the airlines’ industry (A- you is the only one in connect with B -who is in the airlines’ industry) Your ties with B can only be a weak tie because A and B is a local bridge. By forming a strong triadic closure, you can benefit from the novel information gain from accessing the airline industry resources through B.
With all these theories in mind, you can jumpstart your career by forming advantageous connections.