Five Ways to Refresh Your Connections This Spring
By Bhavin Shah
Do you have a strategy for maintaining your social media and real life connections? Or, like many, do you acquire new friends and follow others without much thought to keeping up with those connections as time goes on? When was the last time you came across someone in your Friend or Following list and said, “Who in the world is that?” Or maybe you’re prompted by a friend’s status update or Tweet to think, “I really miss them. We should get together sometime.” And then fail to follow through? Here are five ideas for dusting the cobwebs out of your Virtual Rolodex to refresh your connections this Spring:
1) Ask someone to coffee. Every week!
In his book “The Startup of You” Reid Hoffmann suggests starting an “Interesting People Fund” for maintaining the relationships that are important to you. Set aside a dollar here and there on a regular basis so you have no excuse not to invite that old colleague or new acquaintance out for a cup of coffee or to lunch. There’s no substitute for face time, so the fund could even grow to cover a plane ticket for your connections who live far away.
2) Write a Recommendation
LinkedIn has become a go-to source for industry news and guidance from thought leaders. While you’re there, you may be prompted to write an endorsement for your connections. But it’s the longer form and personalized nature of a thoughtful LinkedIn recommendation that makes writing one for a colleague a Five-minute Favor worth doing. Writing a recommendation will remind you about past projects, and it creates a nice opportunity to get in touch proactively.
Don’t feel obligated to write recommendations for someone whose work product you don’t know well, or don’t feel comfortable endorsing. This part of your Spring Refresh should really be more about paying it forward and reconnecting. At the same time you’ll have the chance to get up to speed on who in your network has changed jobs recently and who has a new title.
3) Introduce Someone
Another “selfish favor” you can grant is an introduction between two colleagues who may benefit from the connection. We’ve taken the work out of professional introductions in our latest app update. Just tap “Introduce” within a dossier and you can share pertinent background to help kick start their conversation.
4) Dust off Your App Settings
Now is a good time to think about how you’re using social networks to learn about the important people
in your life. Refresh works best when you link more of your social networks (tap More in the bottom nav of the app and scroll down to see which services you have linked).
Did you know that even if you’re not a big Facebook user, Refresh can still give you useful insights?
Your friends who regularly update their status are sharing key life moments that could be enriching their dossiers and providing you with context you can’t get anywhere else.
5) Reacquaint Yourself With Your Friend List
Review your friend lists on Facebook and LinkedIn. If you don’t remember where or how you met the person, Refresh may be able to help jog your memory through Insights or our Ask a Friend feature. And after you’ve reconnected, our new Follow-up feature can help you remember the favor you promised or the information you agreed to send.
Do you have ideas for a Spring Refresh of your connections? Tweet us @RefreshApp or send an email to community@refresh.io and let us know!
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