After starting a website several years ago that featured interviews with Christian young people, I found out I needed to learn how to connect and make acquaintances with people online, quickly, easily, and effectively. Being a pretty outgoing person, I’ve never really had a fear of chatting with and meeting new people face to face. But after running the site for several weeks I found out that “meeting” people online is a bit different then meeting people face to face.One of the big differences is in your presentation. When connecting with someone in real life, most of the time you try to establish common ground with the person first. Whether it be sports, politics, beliefs, etc.  This works online, in certain situations. When I contact people to interview them, I don’t necessarily find something I have in common with the person. I usually cut straight to the point and tell the person about myself and the reason why I’m contacting them. Now if your looking to make a friendship with the perspective person, then I would suggest finding common ground. But if you need to interview a new person every week, then you may not have time to do this.Another thing I’ve learned is if you contact the person via social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc, your likely to get a quicker response. I personally usually find it strange to be contacted by someone by email before I hear from them via social networks.  I believe the reason for this is because social networks are for just that, networking. Now there are exceptions to this “rule”. If the person you would like to contact hardly ever checks their social network profiles, then your probably better off with contacting them via email.How about you? Do you have any tips for connecting and making contacts online? Let us know in the comment section below.

Tags: connecting, Making friends online, social networks