In a world now mitigated by technology, the use of social media to connect with friends, family, colleagues, and to meet new people is more important now than it has ever been before.

Connecting with people you already know is easy. Maybe you use Instagram for your friends, Facebook to stay connected with family, and programs like Slack and Zoom to stay in touch with colleagues.

But how do you meet new people?

LinkedIn and Twitter are great resources for branching out while staying in.

Here are four strategies to help you start meeting people online now:

1. Connect with your colleagues through LinkedIn. The more connections you make, the more suggested connections that LinkedIn will give you. So many careers are built on the connections that you have – don’t let COVID-19 hinder your networking capabilities.

(Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn now!)

2. Attend virtual events and leverage the opportunity. What do I mean? First, get your ticket to the event. Then, prior to the event, take 5 minutes and connect with the presenters on LinkedIn. Follow them on Twitter. Finally, post that you’re attending the event to see if anyone in your network is also attending, and TAG THE ORGANIZATION AND THE PRESENTERS!

Your post will get more traction with more views, so you’ll likely end up being in front of the people who are also attending. If anyone you don’t know also interacts with your post, or you look at the presenter’s feed and see that someone else also tagged the presenter, connect with that person, too!

3. Be active with posting about the subject area you work in. Look up articles. Post the ones you really like and tag the authors on Twitter and/or LinkedIn. You’ll likely draw attention of others who are interested in the same subject area and will make connections with those in the same field. Twitter is especially good at help you gain connections with other professionals who are more geographically dispersed – nationwide or even worldwide.

4. Comment and retweet with other peoples’ content. Don’t just post your own material and expect a great response. People want to feel heard and appreciated, first and foremost. If all you do is use social media to shout out about what you think and what you’re doing, it won’t encourage others to interact with you. Instead, make sure you react to other people’s LinkedIn posts daily. Write thoughtful comments on the articles they share or the posts they create. Like people’s Tweets. If you retweet, add a comment of your own. Reply to their tweets. The more you give, the more you’ll get when you post.

Admittedly, these techniques require an investment of your time and effort. But, I promise that if you put in the investment, you’ll be rewarded with new connections virtually, which can often turn into great friendships IRL once you meet in person.

A final tip is a simple one that is an art somewhat lost these days – help your friends make connections. Do you know someone who might benefit from knowing someone you know? Make the introduction! Help them connect! Tag the two in a post, or send an email. The more you go out of your way to help your friends benefit from new connections, the more likely they’ll be to do the same for you.

I hope you enjoyed this post and can use these strategies to meet people while most of us are stuck at home. If you did, please give it a “like” and connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter!

Thanks for reading!