TerpAMA - "The Hands We Shake" with Bennett Resnik

Every seat in a Van Munching Hall classroom was filled Tuesday to hear Bennett Resnik's lecture series "The Hands We Shake".

Sponsored by TerpAMA, the lecture was geared to help students turn social networking into social capital in order to build strong business relationships.

According to Resnik, social networking is defined as creating or sustaining relationships through sites such as Twitter or Facebook and social capital is how we exchange resources and help each other grow.

Resnik says the key to creating lasting and mutually beneficial business relationships is applying the principles of online social networking to an offline world. In order to expand your network, it is important to exchange resources with your current network and establish a give-and-take relationship instead of a purely one-sided one.

For example, college students are the prime demographic that most companies want to appeal to. Though students lack experience, they can instead help companies modernize marketing strategies for the desired demographic.

Resnik cites a mutual exchange of resources as a necessity in the building of social capital.

He says taking risk is important when trying to create these relationships, and there is really no downside: the worst-case scenario is that they say no.

"When one door closes, 100 doors can open," Resnick said.

According to Resnik, the most important part of sustaining social capital is staying in touch. He told students to avoid letting connections become what he calls "dormant contacts" because it is easy to stay in touch but very hard to back-track.

An example of dormant contacts is any Facebook friend who you're no longer in touch with. Social interaction may once have been natural, but by letting the relationship fall by the wayside it is more difficult to connect with them.

While social networking regularly focuses on quantity—number of Facebook friends, Twitter followers, views on Youtube—it is important to put quality over quantity.

"Quality is always supreme in the cultivation of social capital," Resnick said. "Through quality comes quantity."

TerpAMA is the University of Maryland's award-winning chapter of the American Marketing Association. They welcomed 21 new members Tuesday, but President Manas Kulkarni says it's never too late to join.

Benefits of joining include access to alumni, all events, recruiters, marketingpower.com, and more for a $47 annual fee. All members are eligible to attend the AMA National Conference in New Orleans next semester.

Target will be hosting a workshop November 8 in 1212 Van Munching Hall at 6:30 p.m., Vice President of Events Lisa Wagner said. Members will have the opportunity to hear from both Target recruiters and UMD's Office of Career services in order to help students with their resume and interview techniques.