Business Fundamentals: Effective Networking
Discover how improving your business networking can enhance your professional relationships and open up career opportunities.
Duration
4 weeksWeekly study
3 hours
Business Fundamentals: Effective Networking
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Build your network and personal brand online and in the real world
Networking is a fundamental business skill, which will help you take control of your career. Understanding the benefits of business networking, and how to overcome common networking barriers is a valuable skill.
This online course introduces the principles of effective networking, which will help develop your personal brand.
You’ll learn how to analyse the value of your existing connections, and find out how to create and manage your digital presence for networking on social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook.
You’ll also learn how to write an elevator pitch and get feedback on it from the course educators.
Syllabus
Week 1
What it is and why we do it
Fundamentals of networking
Explore the fundamentals of networking. Learn about the benefits that networking can bring and how to overcome some of the barriers.
Looking at you
Carry out self-assessments you can use in your elevator pitch that will help you recognise in which directions to develop your network.
The elevator pitch
Learn what makes an effective elevator pitch and begin to craft your own.
Week 2
How to get the most from face-to-face opportunities
Recognising opportunities
Explore the benefits of face-to-face networking.
Interpersonal skills
Learn about and practise the interpersonal skills needed for effective networking.
Revisiting your elevator pitch
Put your learning from this week into practice and revisit and revise your elevator pitch.
Week 3
Online networking opportunities
Social networks
Explore social networks and how to use them to their best advantage in networking.
Successful examples of social media networking
Investigate further how you can use LinkedIn to achieve your networking goals.
Building your brand
Learn how blogging and tweeting can help you engage with others and enhance your connections.
Week 4
Developing your networking plan
Analysing your networks
Analyse your network and learn how to identify which relationships to sustain.
Your personal brand
A brand conveys a promise that the product will deliver consistent and reliable standards of performance. For a networker, the promise is to honour commitments and fulfil expectations.
The plan
Start planning your next steps putting all you’ve learned about networking into practice.
Who is this accredited by?
This course is accredited by EOCCS, the first international quality benchmark for online courses in business and management education.
Learning on this course
On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
- Apply the principles of effective networking
- Improve your impression-management skills in a professional context
- Develop your analytical and prioritisation skills
- Identify, select and use online tools to enhance your digital presence
- Develop the potential of your personal brand
Who is the course for?
This course is intended for anyone looking to enhance and develop their professional network in order to open up opportunities and strengthen their professional relationships.
The course does not require any previous experience of studying networking.
For further information about registration, the final assessment course, your eligibility and the BA in Business Management, visit the Open University website.
Who will you learn with?
Lead educator on Business Fundamentals: Effective Networking. Before becoming an academic Terry's marketing career spanned fast-moving consumer goods, the arts, and the non-profit sector.
Who developed the course?
The Open University
As the UK’s largest university, The Open University (OU) supports thousands of students to achieve their goals and ambitions via supported distance learning, helping to fit learning around professional and personal life commitments.
Established
1969Location
Milton Keynes, UKWorld ranking
Top 510Source: Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020
The Open University Business School
A pioneer in flexible learning for over 30 years, The Open University Business School delivers transformational, high quality business and management education which is quality assured.
Learning on FutureLearn
Your learning, your rules
- Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
- Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
- Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores
Join a global classroom
- Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
- Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
- Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others
Map your progress
- As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
- Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
- Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate
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