Consistently, business owners from all kinds of different backgrounds gather at conferences. Networking is a fundamental part of conferences, however it can frequently prompt a substantial pile of business cards in your desk drawer and nothing more. How would you keep these people you met as associations rather than business cards? How would you keep your connections alive?

Here are four steps you can take to follow up with your new contacts after a conference

1) Sort your contacts

You’ll meet a lot of astonishing individuals at each conference you go to, however, let’s be honest, not every one of them will enable you to drive your career or business forward. Organize the individuals who do (or will) in a few categories:

• Follow up for professional growth.
• Follow up for side ventures.
• Follow up for industry purposes,
• Follow up for personal growth.

After you arrange your contacts, there may be a few people who did not make the cut. That is OK. It’s not personal, right? As any business person will tell you, it’s regarding the being the right person at the right time. However, we don’t recommend burning any bridges or cutting anyone off, you never know who could help you in the future.

2) Connect on social media

To guarantee the business cards don’t sit someplace in your office gathering dust, utilize them to locate those new contacts via social media. Send them an invite — LinkedIn and Twitter are the routes regularly used to connect or stay in touch. When you connect, it’s constantly a great practice to send them a short note including an indication of how (or where) you met and, if possible, a reference to what you discussed at the conference.

3) Move the conversation online

Since you’ve just categorized your new contacts and chose what will be the motivation behind your new connection, your objective for connecting with them will help shape your discussion and the structure of your relationship.

4) Plan to meet again

When you’re at a conference, your work, family, and social life gets put on hold. Every one of your efforts will be focused on meeting, welcoming new people and making new connections, while reaffirming old ones.  Try not to allow your new contacts to fall by the wayside, do set aside an opportunity to get together with your conference contacts. Realizing that you each have occupied schedules and limited time to connect, make the most out of your time together.

Here are a couple of bonus pointers!

• Compose a short sentence about yourself, your identity, what you do and what you are hoping to find out about.
• Be honest and constructive. Don’t use the time you have grumbling about minor things or persons you may blend with. Networking is not a time to vent. As the familiar saying goes, ‘be watchful whose toes you step on, they may be associated with the butt you’ll need to kiss tomorrow.’
• Set up a couple of questions ahead of time. Come to the table with a couple of things you’d like to talk about
• Get some information about further development and when you may be chanced to meet next – they could be at the next conference you’ll be going to.
• Follow up with a thank you email or note. Being neighborly never goes out of style.