Connections vs. Contacts
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This week I had the opportunity to listen in to Beverly Mahone’s blog talk radio show called Passions
On Monday, Beverly had a lady named Olalah (pronounced O-la-la) Njenga (pronounced jan gah) from Marketing with Ease to talk about marketing in the current economic times.
I wanted to share with you one of the things that I learned from this show.
Olalah expressed her definitions between connections and contacts. She mentioned that she gets people who frequently disagree with her on this point and at first, I thought it sounded a bit backwards myself.
She said that contacts are those people who you may have talked to or met once and you know each other but not well. A connection is a person who you have a mutual solid relationship (more so as a friendship) with and a person you can count on as a resource.
Here is the Wikipedia definition of social contact : A person known to an individual, possibly on a different basis than friendship
and here is the Wikipedia definition of social connectedness refers to the duration of a relationship. It continues to discuss about the quality and/or the number of connections with family, friends.
Here is one way to think about it:
My librarian is a contact.
My website designer is a connection.
Now, I would like to go further to say that a contact can become a connection over time, if that is something you wish to happen. And as I even look back at the librarian being a contact, I want to say, that would be a possibly fantastic as a connection–you know most libraries have workshops, classes and event that could be beneficial to your business.
3 ways to turn a contact into a connection:
1) Find mutual ground between you and your contact. And produce a win win joint venture with your contact.
2) Be a referral resource for your contact. Bring others to your contact to bring in sales for your contact.
3) Become a go to person for your contact. Always provide value for your contact.
And now, I want to ask you—what do you feel about these definitions regarding connections vs. contacts? Do you have others ideas on how a contact can be a connection?
Sparkplugging Founder Wendy Piersall is dang passionate about helping people start & grow a business while maintaining life balance (somehow). 
I think keeping in touch via Twitter and Facebook helps turn contacts into connections. Whenever new contacts comment on something, respond to show you’re paying attention to them. People luuv attention. Flatter them. I find that asking for interviews, despite the fact that sometimes your contacts are pretty big names, flatters them and helps move the process along.
Susan Payton, The Marketing Eggsperts last blog post..Help a Reporter Out to Get Publicity for Your Biz
“Become a go to person for your contact. Always provide value for your contact.”
That’s actually the best one, you’ll become an authority in your field and people will prefer your advice because it’s beneficial and useful to them.