Like most internet professionals your contact list is often your most overlooked asset. Your network, contacts or connections are more than likely your primary source of communication, sales, feedback and contribution -depending on your specific role, some may not apply-.
Social Networking has made keeping a single contact list next to impossible due to some contacts only being on some networks and the fact that most social networks have proprietary contact-systems. These factors make it very difficult to manage only a single contact list. Social Networking for professionals is all about time, resources and contacts… While we at 412Media have not perfected the 25 hour day, nor automated HR personnel, we have however figured out the core systems behind most social-networks, email programs and IM-services to manage your contacts in a more efficient, productive and manageable way.
The key to successful management of your contact lists is to find a central program to host them in, I strongly recommend utilizing a desktop E-Mail client or contact-management system for this as they offer the most flexibility, security and features for managing your contact lists. Your goal will be to Export your contact lists in what they call CSV (Comma Separated Values) format… All of the systems I list below have the ability to export and import contact lists.
First we are going to export all your contact lists into aptly named CSV files..
Exporting Contacts with Social Networks, E-Mail Programs or IM-Services
Please select the Social Network, E-mail Program or IM-Service below to see how to Export Contacts.
As a tip, use a directory for all your contact-export files, such as users\you\contacts
Second we want to import all of our contacts into a single and manageable system.
Importing Contacts
The next step is to import these CSV files into your selected Contact Management System, below we cover this process in the top-5 most used programs for this task… If you use a program not featured here, please contact us and provide the program your using, we’ll promptly respond with it’s specific contact-importing process(es).
Managing This Beast
You probably have hundreds or thousands of contacts, all in a single system. From this system you can now import any changes and when you use a new solution, or feel it’s time to update your networks you can export from this single solution and aggregate the CSV file to the various networks and systems you need to.
This system may seem a bit to much, or redundant, but trust us, keeping control of your contact lists in key in the social web we all live in now. For this to be as beneficial as possible you really should invest time into finding a contact-management system that you truly enjoy using… Things to look for are flexibility, power and support.
Hope this helps everyone keep control of their contacts, having the ability to communicate with your contact-base is key to your message being heard by the most people.
- Once you’ve logged in to LinkedIn, click the Contacts link at the top of the page.
- Near the bottom right of the Contacts page you’ll see an Export Connections Link, Click it.
- For the “Export To” field, select your chosen Contact Management Program. If it’s not listed, select vCard (.vcf) format instead.
- Save to your hard-drive as something descriptive like “LinkedInContacts”
- Once Logged into MailF5, select the Options tab on the top area of your main Inbox.
- Click the Import/Export tab of the Options Menu.
- Select Contacts as the type, Contacts as the Destination, then select your CSV file for uploading..
- Click the Import button to the right.
- Under the File button, select Export then Windows Contacts
- Choose CSV file and click the Export button and select where to save the file.
- Once you’ve logged into your Gmail account, click the Contacts link below your listing of Labels on the left.
- On the top-right of the main-content area click the Export link.
- Select the contacts to be exported.
- Select the appropriate CSV format, if you don’t know, got with the Outlook CSV Format
- Click the Export button and your CSV file will be downloaded.
- Once logged into Yahoo! Mail, select the Contacts tab at the top, or item from the menu on the left.
- Select the Import Now option.
- Once prompted, select Other source for the contacts.
- On the following page select the “A Desktop Email Program” from the list of options.
- Click the “Choose File” button and select the Contacts CSV file you wish to import.
- Then it’s as easy to breezing through the next 2 confirmation screens.
- Once you’ve logged in to LinkedIn, click the Add Connections link at the very top right of the page near your name.
- Under the main box titled “See Who You Already Know On LinkedIn” click the Import your desktop email contacts link.
- Select the CSV, VCF or whatever file your wanting to import contacts from, then click Upload File
- Once Logged into MailF5, select the Options tab on the top area of your main Inbox.
- Click the Import/Export tab of the Options Menu.
- Under the “Export” title, Select Contacts as the type, Contacts as the source…
- Click the Export button to the right to download and save your comF5 Contacts file.
- Once logged into Facebook, select the Friends link on th left.
- To the right of the heading “Find People You Email” click the Upload Contact File link.
- Under “Microsoft Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Apple Mail and others” click Upload File, select your file and click Upload.
- From the primary screen, select File > Import > Windows Contacts.
- When prompted for the type of file to upload selected CSV (Comma Separated Values), then click the Import.
- Select the contact-CSV file you wish to import and click the Import button.
- Once you’ve logged into your Gmail account, click the Contacts link below your listing of Labels on the left.
- On the top-right of the main-content area click the Import link.
- Select your Contacts CSV file to be imported.
- Select the contacts to be exported.
- Select the appropriate group for the new contacts to be placed in -optional-.
- Click the Import link at the bottom of the form.
