Once you have made contact with someone and developed the connection, you need to keep them up to date with how your career is developing. Whilst the individual approach is worth it for key contacts you know are committed to helping you, you will also need to develop broader strategies for making your network aware of developments. This section will help you to identify which updates are worth sharing and help you make best use of platforms to build your profile.

If we start with strategies to update individuals, ensure you update them on anything that relates to advice or support they have given you. Let them know if sharing a contact in a new group or company led to a useful conversation, invitation to visit or interview. If they have helped by reviewing your CV and pointing out areas which could be improved, let them know as these improvements happen. If they could put you forward for an opportunity such as membership of a committee or board, but want to see evidence of particular skills, again let them know as you can demonstrate these more convincingly. Staying on people’s radar, particularly when we are all increasingly busy, increases your chance of being in their mind when opportunities arise.

In more general terms, you can keep your wider network up to date through conferences, social media and professional networks. If you are speaking at a conference, include a slide with details of your most recent publication (if people are interested, it will be really helpful to be directed to the most relevant paper) and who has funded the work. If you have worked with anyone during the research, include their name and a photograph, thus reinforcing the connection in peoples’ minds, as well as demonstrating yourself to be a generous colleague who acknowledges the contributions of your partners.

When you publish a new paper, think about how to generate interest in it and ensure that the people you want to read it actually notice it. There are many different strategies to do this, but the following guide contains the approaches used by researchers who have taken active steps to build audiences for their published work: http://www.shintonconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Boosting-the-impact-of-publications.pdf.

Although some of the ideas in this business focused blog wouldn’t work with academic networks, the underlying advice is good and it contains some suggestions which should translate well to research: http://www.forbes.com/sites/dailymuse/2013/08/29/simple-ways-to-keep-your-network-from-growing-cold.

Conferences are a great place to bring people up to date, not just with your work, but also your other professional successes. This jobs.ac.uk blog post offers advice on making the most of conference networking: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/careers-advice/working-in-higher-education/2232/conference-networking-for-academics/ and http://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/staff/brandguidelines/toolkit/guidetosocialmedia/researchblogs/.

Before we move on, here’s a question to consider: 'Am I in the habit of sharing updates with people in my network?'

If you feel that you are good at communicating with your network, congratulations, you’ve reached the end of the networking resource!