As a Twin Cities-based copywriter and recent “transplant” to the area, I was lucky enough to find a new home with a stunning perennial garden. At least for now, I’m surrounded by flowers when I sit by my window to write. (Believe me, I’m drinking it in before the snow flies here in Minnesota — isn’t that supposed to happen in, like, a week or two? I haven’t lived here in ten years, so I forget.)

Now, while that may sound tranquil and lovely to some, those who garden know that it’s a WHOLE lot of work. In fact, looking out at my yard can sometimes even stress me out. I haven’t had a garden to care for in years, I think, I’m overwhelmed. Where do I start? How do I keep the weeds at bay? Which ones are weeds, anyway?

After an initial bout of “botanic panic,” I did, of course, calm down and set myself some realistic goals. Broke the whole project into bite-size chunks, small enough to accomplish in spurts. Sure enough, over time all that weeding, pruning, watering, fertilizing and tilling have actually yielded noticeable results. Lovely results.

Call me weird, but I can’t help but think of business networking when I tend my plants. (Well, not every time I tend them. Sometimes I’m just yanking weeds and cursing the mosquitoes.) You know what I mean — just like fertilizer and pruning yield bigger, better blooms, personal attention yields stronger relationships. Leave your plants and professional contacts alone, and they wither.

It’s time for me to roll up my sleeves and grow my garden of contacts. The chaos of our cross-country move is over, the kids are settling in at school, and I now have a chance to think. So, as I plan my next steps, a list is forming in my head — what can you add to the list? What are your best networking tips? I’d love to hear them.

My Networking To-Do List:

• Consider joining a networking group in Minneapolis/St. Paul.
• Get more active on LinkedIn. Join some groups, get to know new people in those groups.
• Make a list of my social media/blogging heroes, and follow their blogs and tweets regularly. Leave comments that truly add to the discussion when appropriate.
• Blog regularly here about copywriting, social media marketing, small business and Twin Cities happenings.
• Reconnect with friends and former colleagues, let them know what I’m doing. Buy a few of them a coffee, and ask for their advice.
• Brush up the résumé, so it’s ready at a moment’s notice. Practice my elevator speech.
• Watch the freelance job boards.
• Volunteer at my kids’ new schools. Hey — when you’re new in town, it pays to stay open to all the possibilities. You never know where you’ll make a valuable business contact. Or a new friend.

I have a feeling I’m not alone in this sea of irony. See if you can relate:

• I was over the moon when we finagled a free DVR from our satellite TV provider — and now I gleefully fast-forward through the commercials when I want to watch my favorite shows (I’m admittedly a rabid fan of The Office, 30 Rock and Medium).
• When the Do Not Call list first came into existence, I was an evangelist, spreading the word among my colleagues, friends and family, even signing up my grandparents without internet access.
• I even joined GreenDimes, an organization dedicated to stopping junk mail and saving our natural resources, and gave the gift of their services to several of my loved ones.

What’s up with that? Oh, it’s only the biggest shift in marketing we’ve ever seen.

As one of the participants in Allison Nazarian’s fantastically informative, five-week marketing teleseminar series (featuring 20 experts in a variety of social media-related fields), I listened to Dave Evans, author of Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day, as he described his own journey into social media-based marketing. He, too, found it ironic that in his personal time he utilized all available tools to deflect advertising messages. He started to wonder, “If we couldn’t interrupt people, how would we reach them?” That, among other events, led to his publication of a white paper on the rise of Web 2.0 technology, and ultimately to his career as a social media consultant.

Evans points out that traditional marketing views consumers’ attention as an unlimited resource. Traditional marketers compete for attention in an ongoing struggle to “break through the clutter” and to control or drive business. Problem is, just how much attention can we pay when we’re inundated with thousands upon thousands of messages (aka interruptions) daily?

With social media-based marketing, on the other hand, we view consumers’ attention as limited even as we realize their choices for information are unlimited. We know that prospects won’t sit through unwelcome interruptions that don’t interest them. Instead, they fast-forward, blog, Digg, write and share product reviews, upload video, bookmark and follow. Or un-foll0w.

So what’s a marketer to do when all the rules are changing?

As Evans says, instead of “driving” prospects into that golden purchase funnel, our tactics must necessarily shift — toward participation in social media, as a peer. Toward listening, and then engaging with potential customers in meaningful, two-way communication. (All in a way that’s completely transparent — Evans emphasizes that you must disclose your true identity as a brand ambassador.) And according to Evans, these new behaviors can actually serve to “amplify” your traditional marketing efforts.

All of which reminds me of what I’ve read in Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies (by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research). They define the “groundswell,” or the new behavior surrounding Web 2.0, as:

A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.

Great food for thought as you execute your promotion plans in 2009. I think this is an extremely exciting time to be in marketing, don’t you? How do you plan to turn your prospects into customers? Better yet, how will you turn your customers into over-the-top evangelists for your brand?