Social networking communities provide a strong and in some ways superior opportunity for connecting with business professionals and establishing productive relationships. Not everyone you meet who offers value to your people network will come from a networking event you attend. In fact, there are people who now spend the majority of their time connecting online as the first point of contact.

I have experimented with a process of using social networks to:

1) Identify quality people
2) Get to know them through their profiles
3) Reach out to them by telephone, and schedule a one-on-one session.

I am finding the quality of contacts is actually better when I do this because I have had so much more exposure to the people I choose to meet with even before we meet. In fact, I am finding that the meetings we do have are more meaningful because we are spending less time figuring out if we are a good fit for each other and spending more time taking the relationship to its full potential.

Here are a few more reasons to explore eventless networking for those who may feel the scale is not sufficiently titled in favor of the concept to try something other than what they are already doing:

1) Saves time, gas, and money – If you are not driving around like a mad person from event to event to find a handful of people you might want to follow up with that is a good thing. By doing some “due diligence” in advance you minimize the potential that your get together with the people you met online is going to bomb.

2) It’s more convenient – Sometimes you cannot get out to a networking event because of other responsibilities, but you can almost always work it into your schedule to meet people online and schedule appointments with them, since that’s was you’re supposed to be doing with the people you meet at networking events anyway.

3) Follow up in already in place – When you meet someone through a social network, or online you already have a built in follow up system with them since that’s how you met them in the first place. You don’t have to worry about getting a business card, entering it into a database, or pretending that you’re doing to do that. In fact, if all of your contacts are in the same online community you can also make it easier to introduce each other using the same method.

I’m not suggesting that business networking events should be abandoned all together. I am saying you should abandon the excuse of not having time to go to them as a reason not to do more business networking.