Twitter

This blog originally appeared in The Huffington Post

Pic: Sarah Hilton

For me, one of the most evocative pictures to come from the events of the last week in London and around the UK was taken by a friend of mine.

I was delighted to be invited to the launch of Heather Townsend's new book 'The Financial Times Guide to Business Networking' last Thursday evening. 

Shortly after I finished presenting at a B2B Marketing Symposium last night news filtered through of the demise of The News of the World. Following the phone hacking scandal that has dominated news in the UK this week, the decision has been taken to close the doors of the newspaper, which has been published since 1843, after this weekend's edition. 

With the growth of online networks allowing people to connect with ease, is the popularity of networking groups close to peaking and are they in danger of becoming redundant? What role do they play in the modern, inter-connected environment?

This article was originally published in The National Networker

In October 2008, participation in social networks online overtook visits to pornography sites* and their prominence continues to grow, as does the number of networks we have to choose from. In September 2010 50% of all UK internet users reported being active on social networks**.

Following my recent webinar on using networking effectively to grow your business, I received an email from one of the participants. He asked me "how much time would someone need to invest, daily or weekly into online networking through platforms like LinkedIn, FaceBook etc...?

Last week I spent a thoroughly enjoyable couple of days speaking at ‘Sage World 2010’, a conference run by the business software company Sage. I spoke both at the beginning of the first day of the event and at the very end of the last, so was involved throughout. And I had a wonderful time.

What made Sage World so outstanding for me was the atmosphere. It was one where the staff, the speakers and the delegates all shared a positive spirit and a sense of community.

Numbers following you are important if you use Twitter to build your profile. In which case, you want people to follow you for the right reasons.

When people click onto a profile to decide whether or not to follow someone on Twitter, they will very often just look at their last tweet and decide if it catches their interest. I know I do.