How To Stay Connected When You Are Not There [Updated]

Stay Connected

Several years ago prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, I was asked by a member of the Career Pivot Community about how to stay connected to his remote network during a job search. He and his wife are living in an area where the economy is in decline. He is looking for a job halfway across the country.

I previously wrote the post, I Want to Be Hired Before I Move Dilemma. I share how to make it look like you are in a remote location without actually having to physically move there.

This Career Pivot member was making regular trips to a remote location for networking. The problem he is struggling with is how he can stay connected in between the trips. He wants to stay connected to the people he meets on each trip, but not be a pest.

A pest would email them every week or so, to check to see if they have heard anything. He knows that when people behave like a pest to him, he stops reading their emails.

My response was to become a resource to them on LinkedIn. Share targeted curated content to become a resource to them.

In the COVID-19 world, the same strategies apply but the people you will be meeting will be online. You still want to stay connected.

Note: This post was originally posted in July of 2018 and was updated in August of 2020.

Share Curated Content on LinkedIn

Curating content is nothing new. Museums and galleries have been doing this for years. They have curators who select pieces to display or share.

He should do the same by curating content from the geographical location and industry he is pursuing.

Let’s talk about finding relevant content and then sharing it on LinkedIn

Finding Content to Share to Stay Connected

I always suggest subscribing to the Business Journal in multiple locations in the state where you want to relocate. In this case, he was targeting North Carolina. I suggested he subscribe to the Raleigh/Durham, Charlotte, and Greensboro/Winston-Salem Business Journals.

You might also subscribe to the email lists of relevant industry associations. For example, I subscribe to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College newsletter. I am always finding interesting content there to share.

You might want to check out Feedly, which helps you to locate RSS feeds and then filter the content based on keywords.

I use Twitter lists to organize the Twitter feeds of various organizations. If you are not sure how to use a Twitter list, check out my post: Twitter Lists, and the Targeted Job Search.

Schedule Content to Share

Once you have located content to share, you will want to use a tool like Buffer to schedule the content to be shared on LinkedIn throughout the week. There are other tools out there, but I am a big fan of buffer.com. The free version will let you schedule posts to a personal LinkedIn account for free.

For example, you might locate 4-5 relevant pieces of content on a Monday morning, and schedule them to be shared mid-morning and early afternoon for Tuesday – Thursday on LinkedIn. You may want to check this Hubspot article called, The Best Time to Post on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+.

You will want to check the engagement level for every post by checking how many clicks and likes each post gets. Buffer will provide those basic statistics.

Target Individuals in New Location

Now comes the important part of this strategy. After a post has gone live, make a comment in the post, and specifically tag individuals.

You may be saying to yourself, how do I tag an individual in a comment. You do this by typing first an @ and then their name. 

I posted a podcast episode where I was interviewed by Denise King, and I wanted Denise to know I was using the recording. You then type in her name and a drop-down list will appear. Selected her name from the list and type in a message.

Denise will now be notified that she was mentioned in a comment.

You may also want to pose a question to a group of people who you want to get their opinion on the topic. Tag each person in the same fashion and watch for engagement.

Be Helpful by Sharing Relevant Content

For each curated content you find, tag one or more individuals who you think would find it worthwhile. Pay attention to see who engages with the content by commenting or liking the post on LinkedIn.

If you consistently share relevant content once or twice a week, people will notice and want to stay engaged.

This strategy works whether the connection is local or remote. It is even better if you are sharing content that you produce, like a blog post or a podcast.

There are two themes I want you to remember :

• Be helpful
• Be consistent

If you do share relevant content every week at approximately the same time, people will come to expect your sharing.

This makes you memorable!

Marc Miller  

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