Tapping Old Networks through Social Media

Every one of us, throughout the course of our lives, cycles through several social networks. For example, if you attended college, you undoubtedly had a circle of close friends, as well as a wide number of acquaintances among your classmates, within your graduating class, in your own academic department, among members of different organizations to which you belongs, in the faculty and across interdisciplinary academic lines. All of these individuals are potential members of your current social network on the different social media sites to which you belong.

Old Career Networks

The same is true of the connections you’ve made throughout the course of your career as well. People with whom you’ve worked at different jobs, supervisors to whom you’ve reported and vendors or other professional connections you made while working for different employers over the years can also be among your professional and social connections on different social media sites.
Current and Older Membership Ranks

Likewise, any organizations, clubs or other membership-based groups to which you’ve belonged over the years can also be a source of connections for your current social network. Current membership in different real world organizations can also be a source for your social networking circles.

Goal-Based Social Networking

The connections you decide to tap into from your “past lives” are entirely dependent upon your goal in utilizing social networks. You may be simply trying to reconnect with old friends and acquaintances. Or you may have more targeted professional goals in mind when tapping into your old networks.

Using Social Network Tools

Regardless of the reason you’ve decided to expand your social media connections by utilizing old social networks, the different social media utilities you currently use offer a number of different tools and methods for reconnecting. Each social media platform operates off of the idea that your former connections and current social networks will be the feed demographic for building a social network on the site.

Facebook, for example, allows you to search manually for people with whom you may be familiar, using their name, location and their profile details to search. If, for instance, the individual for whom you’re searching has listed his or her schools, former and current employers and other similar details within their profile information, you should be able to find them fairly easily and send a friend request in order to reconnect.

Facebook also offers the ability to search for individuals using your current email address book. Facebook social networks also generate additional recommendations for people you may know and may be interested in reconnecting with based on your current connections. It will recommend people who are “friends of friends” with the assumption that you may also know these people, especially if your profile and the profile of your friends share similar details, like school names, hometowns, former or current employers, and the like.

Sites like LinkedIn and other professional networking social media utilities also use similar methods for recommending potential social network connections. Though the process for reconnecting on the different social media sites and for requesting of site members that you be added to their connections may vary, every social media site offers a range of methods for reestablishing connections from your past circles of friends, co-workers, classmates and other former connections.

Old Connections Are New Again

Tapping those old social networks is the basis for building a robust current social network on any social media utility, so take advantage of those old connections, no matter what your current social media goals may be.