How to follow up after a networking event

Write within a day or two, quote the specific thing the two of you talked about, and ask for one small thing or nothing at all. The detail is what makes you a person instead of a business card.

This message has an advantage most outreach does not: you were both there. Your face is somewhere in their memory, attached to a room and a conversation.

That advantage has a short shelf life. Roughly the length of a weekend.

Why "great to meet you" fails

The phrase "great to meet you" fails because it is the one message you could have sent without attending.

That is the whole problem, and it belongs to this kind of note specifically. A cold email is allowed to sound like a cold email. A follow-up that reads exactly like one throws away the only asset you have that a stranger does not, which is that you were both in the same room and you both know it.

Think about what the other person is holding afterwards. A pile of half-conversations, a few names they cannot attach to faces, and the low-grade guilt of knowing they should write to some of these people.

Your generic note joins that pile and dissolves into it, because it carries no evidence that the conversation happened.

Most of my own version of this happens in comment threads rather than at conferences, and the mechanic is identical. The replies I remember are the ones that quoted a specific sentence back at me. The ones I have forgotten opened by telling me the post was great.

Capture the detail before you sleep

Write one line per person the same night, while you can still hear them saying it.

All of this happens before any message gets written. You will lose the specifics faster than you expect, and the specifics are the only part with value.

• The thing they were annoyed about, which is what people actually remember saying.
• The name of the project or the problem they described.
• Anything you promised, including the promise you made vaguely.
• One physical anchor for you: the queue for coffee, or the panel you both escaped.

Dictating this is easier than typing it, especially on the way home when your hands are full and the day is over. I say the four lines out loud into my phone and clean them up later, which takes a minute and saves the entire follow-up.

You already got the thing, so ask for nothing

The strongest message after meeting someone contains no ask at all, because the meeting was the ask and it already worked.

Most advice says every follow-up needs a call to action. That advice is why an inbox after a conference reads like a queue of people who want thirty minutes.

It also misreads the situation. You have already had the conversation you would otherwise be requesting. Turning that into a meeting invitation two days later retroactively converts the whole exchange into prospecting, and people can feel that happening to them.

A message that gives something and asks for nothing is rare enough to be memorable. Send the article you mentioned, or the name of the tool, and stop.

A good follow-up has five short parts

A good follow-up has five short parts and nothing else.

• Where you met, in six words, so they can place you without effort.
• The specific thing you talked about, quoted closely enough that they recognize their own words.
• Whatever you promised, delivered right there in the message.
• One genuine line about their work, which is not flattery if it is specific.
• An exit, so that not replying is a normal outcome rather than a small failure.

That is four or five sentences. Anything longer starts to feel like a pitch deck arriving on a Tuesday.

Skip the resume. You are not applying for anything, and a paragraph about your background reads as an attempt to be evaluated, which nobody enjoys before lunch.

Where to send it

Use the channel where you exchanged details, and pick one.

If they gave you a card, that is an email invitation. If you scanned each other on a phone, that is the social platform, and the note attached to the request is the message. Doing both looks like a campaign.

Watch the register too. Event conversations are casual, and a follow-up that arrives in stiff professional English reads as if a different person wrote it. When the gap between how I talked and how I type gets wide, I take the Warm rewrite in Unvent to bring the draft back to the voice they actually heard.

If you promised something, the promise is the message

If you promised someone something at the event, deliver it in the first line and say hello second.

A promise made in a loud room is the easiest kind to let slide, which is exactly why keeping one lands so hard. The introduction you offered, or the name of the person who solved that problem last year.

Send it in the first line, before any pleasantries. "Here is the person I mentioned who does export controls, I have copied her in" is a complete follow-up and does more than four paragraphs of enthusiasm.

If you promised something you now cannot deliver, say that too, quickly. It is a two-line message and it protects the version of you they met.

The second message, months later

Come back with news rather than a check-in.

Most of these relationships go quiet, and quiet is fine. "Just checking in" asks them to generate a reason for the conversation. Reconnect with a result instead: "you told me to look at X, I did, here is what happened".

That message is welcome years later, because it proves you listened and then acted. That is worth more than any amount of persistence.

You are trying to be the person who, eighteen months from now, comes to mind when somebody needs exactly the thing you said you were good at. Nothing you send this week will do that. The note that quotes them back to themselves is just the cheapest way to still exist in their head when the moment arrives.