In August I interviewed Iggy Pintado as part of the Web Chameleon Creating Online Success Inner Circle program.

Iggy Pintado is an internationally recognized connection technology guru and a dedicated observer of societal and business models and patterns. Iggy’s book Connection Generation is a fascinating study of how connectedness affects our place in society and business and the challenges and opportunities this compelling development presents.

On my call with Iggy we discuss the phenomenon of why people and businesses have adopted online connection technologies faster than any other communication medium. We talked about the impact of this on business, and how to apply connection strategies in your business.

Taken from this call and Iggy’s book Connection Generation, I share below Iggy’s 4 P’s of Online Networking. These are the key factors in successfully participating and obtaining value from Online Networking.

• Purpose
• Profile
• Participation
• Persistence.

The first P is Purpose. Why are you doing it? What do you want to get out of it? Don’t worry about the technology, you need to clear about what are you trying to do and what is your greater purpose?

The second P is Profile. Build your profile via Social Media. Doesn’t it make sense to create an online presence that promotes your personal brand. It doesn’t cost much in terms of implementing, just to put your profile up on some Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and link your profile back to your website?

The third P is Participation. There was a statistic a few months ago that said people who join Twitter - 60% drop out within 3 months. Participation is very important and you have to be active. You have to Tweet quite often and be a part of the conversation. If someone is talking about something then voice your opinion. Collaborate, bring something to the online community.

The next P is Persistence. Social media requires discipline and persistence. It’s important to make the time to be on these networks. This does not have to mean spending 3 or 4 hours each day and becoming addicted but you do need to make sure you maintain a continual presence. Iggy suggests at a minimum checking in to LinkedIn once a week, Facebook once a couple of days and Twitter daily.

To learn more about Iggy you can visit him at www.iggypintado.com