I wanted to take a few minutes today to talk about the Chicago Social Media scene. While it is not as large as the communities around San Francisco or Palo Alto, where Facebook and Twitter are headquartered, the scene here has been a dynamic one, and it sort has shown me how a dynamic social media scene can lead to the development of business to business relationships that can be developed offline and enhanced online.

First, as someone who has been networking for a number of years, I used to find it a bit challenging to keep up with all of the valuable contacts that I made after attending an event. Some of the people that I met at event after event after event were people that I continue to build business relationships with to this day, while the rest were either someone that I contacted a few times or would not hear from again until a few months or years later, if ever. Now, with social media, I look to connect with as many people as possible that I meet at networking events through Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Second, I create deeper business relationships with the people that I already knew and was staying in contact with prior to me using these tools. Now that I can catch up with more people in my network on a regular basis, it has allowed me to maintain a business intimacy that I never had before. Check out my previous article, Social Media Article, on this topic for more information.

As I have told many of my clients. The power of social media is not in the power of the tool, but in the ability to take the people you meet and already know to create deeper relationships that foster more business online and offline. When you are able to create additional business to business relationships and also take those relationships to a new level then you have the makings of an incredible business. That is why I feel closer to a larger number of people who are in the social media scene, because I am connected with a larger number of people more often. The connection possibilities are immense. Who have you connected with lately?