You just had an awesome time at MAGFest 2016, or some other game industry event.  You met some cool people, maybe had a little too much fun at one of the after-parties, and you’re exhausted.  And you have a stack of business cards that you’ve collected over the past two days.

Time to get to work.

In this post, I’m going to give you the playbook for post-event follow-up with folks you just met. This is super critical, and must be completed promptly after the event ends to keep your fledgling connections alive and growing.

Digitize Those Business Cards

Spend a few bucks on an app that uses your smartphone camera to grab the contact info from business cards, and convert all of those business cards to contacts in your phone, in Google contacts, Outlook, Apple Contacts, or whatever software you use to manage contacts.  You’re using software to manage your contacts, right?  If not, do it.

Once you’ve scanned all the cards from your latest event, make sure you tag them or otherwise notate the event/where you met them.  Add any interesting or relevant information from your interaction with the person, because it could be useful later and your poor brain already has enough to remember.  Did you talk about the game they’re working on?  Your favorite sports teams?  Which character is better in Smash?!  Write it down.

Connect on Social Media

I’d recommend tracking down and Following/Friending/Connecting/whatever them on whichever social media sites you’re most active on.    Being connected on social media will help keep you informed about what your new contacts are working on and how you can help.

Bonus points: If you have the time DURING the event, you can even drop a quick Tweet to your new contacts shortly after connecting to let them know you were glad to have met them.

Send a Follow-Up Message

Promptly following the event (within a day or two), send a brief follow-up message to all of the lovely people you met at the event.  This is super important, and should not be skipped or delayed.  You want to keep yourself at the forefront of peoples’ minds, keeping the kindling of your new relationships burning.

Keep in mind that, at this point, you’ve moved into relationship-building territory and should act like a human trying to build a relationship.  Many of the same rules apply here as they do in starting a romantic relationship or new friendship.  Don’t come on too strongly, don’t act cocky, don’t be self-centered, etc.

Here are some of Uncle Dan’s tips for a stellar follow-up:

• DO make it personal.  Mention something specific you talked about when you met.
• DON’T send canned emails.  If you copy and paste the exact same message to everybody, they’ll feel that something is inauthentic.
• DO use a direct, non-public channel such as email or Twitter DMs.  This makes it easy for both of you to reference past conversations and – if a lot of time passes between interactions – remind yourselves of who the hell the other person is.  Other mediums, like a Facebook wall post, will become buried in a sea of noise.
• DON’T go straight to the pitch, unless you’ve already talked business and the conversation is already headed in that direction.  Remember that you barely know these people – and the barely know you.
• DO keep it brief.  Nobody needs a novella landing in their inbox.
• DON’T wait more than a day or two.  They may take longer than that to get back to you, but you shouldn’t wait to send the first follow-up.

This next part is the real secret sauce.

Schedule the Next Follow-Up

As soon as you hit the “send” button on your first follow-up, schedule the next one.  Like, literally schedule it somehow.  These days, when people say “Keep in touch!,” they’re usually kind of lying.  It’s like a polite way to say “I enjoyed the conversation,” while at the same time placing the responsibility of continued contact on the other person.  Assume that it’s your responsibility, and manage that responsibility.

Some people also say, “if it’s not on the calendar, it doesn’t happen.”  Having been converted from an anti-structure kind of guy to a schedularer, I can personally speak to the benefits of scheduling out tasks like these. Create a short, 5-10 minute event on your calendar for 2-4 months in the future, including the persons name and any interesting tidbits from your last talk.  When that event comes around on your calendar, reach out to them again to check in.  Larger companies use CRM (customer relationship management) software to manage these types of tasks, but a Google calendar and your computer’s address book is more than sufficient.  

See how they’re doing with that game they were in the middle of developing last time you spoke.  If it’s coming to a close, ask what they’re looking to tackle next.  Mention something that you’re working on.  Again, do not pitch them.  Let the relationship build.  Opportunities will naturally present themselves later once you know and trust each other, and that takes time.

Better get to work.