Business travel is about making connections and building relationships. Often times, that means gathering a stack of business cards at the year-end meeting.
Using social tools and your smartphone can help you organize those business cards before you make it back to the office. Alexandra Samuel with Harvard Business Review shared her thoughts on what to do in the post “What to Do with All the Business Cards from Your Last Conference “.
A business-card processing app on your smartphone can offer you a way to upload your new business contact with ease. An app like Evernote allows you to scan the business card, convert the card to contact information and offers you social network connection options.
If you meet someone and hit it off, Samuel suggests making the connection right away on social media.
“I like to take a snapshot of me and my new pal and tweet it to him or her along with the hashtag #nicetomeetyou. That way I can see all my new pals in one place,” Samuel shared. “This is a great way to keep track of and in touch with new contacts without feeling as if you need to add them all to LinkedIn.”
Samuel also suggests laying all of the business cards out on a table, take a picture of the entire collection and then pull out the cards you hope to meet with again. Then, take the photo of the full collection and add it to Evernote with a note of where you made the contacts. In the future, if you need to reference who you met, you have a one stop shop.
For those in your keeper pile that you look to connect with in the next month, connect with them via email. It’s a good way to suggest setting up a next meeting or call.