How To Network Without Business Cards [3 Options That Will Cost You $0]

They say that the best things in this life are for free.

And one of the best things in life is to meet new people, making connections, creating friendships and helping others achieving their goals while you keep working on your own.

Every person you know is part of your network - and there’s a 99% chance that you needed somebody from your network for any type of thing: to ask them for a plumber, to ask for advice regarding medical service, to ask for a recommendation where to travel this summer, or to basically ask if they know anyone who would like to use something you packed as a product/service.

Just to clarify: your networking doesn’t start when you get a first job - it starts much before; literally, in primary school, where you were able to meet your first friends. As the time goes by, you’re meeting new people, and start creating strong connections in your professional and private life.

Since we can agree that having a great connections, team-members, and acquaintances is very important, now it’s time to discover how we can connect a lots of them more than ever, and how to do that for free.

Networking is a game of the fastest one. The more people you know, the more you grow. NFC business cards will lead you on that mission - get your NFC card today! 🚀

How Big Is Your Network

Individuals & businesses are still using paper business cards - you must be aware of that.

And even though old-school way of networking can have some pros, there are much more cons to keep printing cards, and hope that somebody will save your piece of paper and keep in touch with you.

That’s why you need to stand out - to show that you’re different for a reason, and to get ahead of others more effectively and more accurately. There are few ways how to get more people and GET MORE from knowing more people and do all of that with zero cost:

• You must meet people faster than others, and not just faster but lots of them faster.
• You must interact with people in the cheapest possible way, so that you can invest your sources into whatever you’re offering to others (product and/or service). So the goal is: save money + be faster + save time.
• You must communicate with people more often than others. This means emailing/messaging them first on LinkedIn, sharing your link-in-bio with them, and doing the follow-up first. Chances are there, but you must catch them.

We know what you’re thinking: nothing in life is for free - we’ll pay either with money and time.

Well, you can - if you keep doing the things as before and get the same results as before.

Or, you can start searching for a new and more effective solutions. Since we want to save your time + show you how to invest in your networking smarter than others, we’ll do this job for you: we’ll show you three options for totally free networking, which means:

1. You’ll pay $0. All the tools we’re going to present you are totally free.

2. You can have it now - no need to waiting for a delivery or purchase. Do it from your couch.

3. Each of free options comes with its educational and helping content - also for free.

No more time to waste. Let’s start! 🚀

QR Code & Widgets

QR codes are extremely used today, and recognised as one of the best, if not the best tool to share info with others massively - for free. They’re used in basically every industry you can think of, and every segment of marketing & brand promotion in any company will most likely contain the QR Code.

You can put QR Code on flyers, posters, billboards, website, t-shirts, and cups.

Since your main goal in networking is to meet people and share your information with others, QR Codes can serve as a business card as well. Numerous of companies are creating QR Code generators, so that you can create QR Code in a way that you want.

One of them is Tapni, and Tapni will offer you multiple possibilities with their QR Codes:

1. You will a specialised QR Code for each information you would like to share.

2. You will be able to customise the QR Code - choose the format, colour, add your logo, and you can also download it as a PNG or SVG file.

3. You will get online & offline QR Code - which is extremely practical if you want to share the data with someone who doesn’t have internet access.

All you need to do is:

• Go to App/Play Store and search for ‘Tapni’.

• Install the app for free; then register and set your username.
• Just like when setting up the data before printing paper business cards, here you can set your contact informations. But, the difference is that Tapni allows you to set any of 77 applications available - for free! You can also add, edit, and delete any time you want. Printing business cards - NO MORE!
• ‘Share’ button gives you the QR Code for your entire Tapni Profile. Additionally, the QR Code is created for each link you add - which means that you’ll have unique QR Codes for your LinkedIn, Instagram, Email or Phone Number, so you can easily share those single informations just by showing your QR Code.

We’re not finished with the Tapni QR Code Sharing Options.

You can also add QR Code Widget to your iPhone or Android device.

This is really useful because you won’t need to open any app once you setup the QR Code Widget or to even unlock your phone (for iPhone users).

One important add-on from Tapni is their possibility to generate both Online & Offline QR Code - which means other can check and save your data even if they don’t have internet access. So, every case is covered in that way, and you don’t need to worry if others can save your informations - just make sure to create your Tapni profile for free, add the data you would like to share, and starting using your QR Codes or QR Code Widget. 💫

Apple & Google Wallet

There are almost 700 million users of Apple & Google Wallet combined. How to stand out if you’re one of them with zero additional costs?

By turning your Apple/Google Wallet into Digital Business Card ✅

This is how you can do this in less than 60 seconds:

• (if you still haven’t installed Tapni App, do it now) go to Tapni App
• Click on 'Share' button

• Just click on 'Add to Apple/Google Wallet'
• Once the window inside your Wallet open, just click on Yes - you’re all set!

Now you can use Apple/Google Wallet as a digital business card - all for free.

P.S. You can combine it with the QR Code & QR Code Widget - triple double 🏀

Link In Bio & Link Shorteners

Let’s take a short break of the QR Codes.

We mentioned earlier that Tapni allows you to generate your own link, something like: t.link/tapni. You’ll get your t.link once you create your Tapni profile, and it will have the following format: t.link/your_username.

You can take your Tapni Link-In-Bio and copy to clipboard, then share it with others in multiple different ways:

1. You can set it in your Instagram Bio…

2. …Or as part of your LinkedIn Bio

3. In your resume

4. On your marketing materials - videos, posters, flyers, billboards

5. As a part of your virtual backgrounds (everybody on that next team call will ask you how they can make it).

Link-in-bio has one unique advantage: it makes your links shorter and more professional. Imagine that you would like to share some Google Drive folder via Tapni App: you will take the Google Drive link, then create the Custom Link, and paste the Google Drive link. If you share your Tapni profile with somebody, that person will go to the drive.google.com link, which, as you know, is a bit long and not that pretty link.

That’s why Tapni come up with link shorteners - for every link you create inside your Tapni profile you will get not only the QR Code, but also the link shortener. This means you can create custom links for anything, and then instead of having long, unreadable links, you can use Tapni’s t.link shorteners.

So, in one tool such as Tapni, you’re getting free Link-In-Bio + free Link Shorteners - there’s no limit how many links you can create, and what is so cool is the fact that you can choose which of the links will be visible at your Tapni profile. This is especially useful if you would like to create a link shortener for something you don’t need to share via your Tapni Profile - you can simply turn it off as a link at your Tapni profile, but the link shortener will work ✅

Wrap Up On How To Get Free Digital Business Card

Throughout our blog we discovered multiple ways on how to create digital business card for free, how to use it and how we can get benefits from each of those free options.

QR Codes are really useful because so many people are more than familiar with them, and you’ll be welcomed to use them in any networking event. ✅

Apple/Google Wallet can be turned into a digital business card, which is another time-saving tactic if you’re usually make your payments with Apple/Google Wallet, not with a physical card or cash. Now with Tapni your wallet can be a double agent ✅

Link-In-Bio can be turned into a digital business card, and it’s especially practical if you’re a content creator, or you would like to pack many of your informations into one short, nice-looking link. Tapni will generate your free link-in-bio as soon as you create your free Tapni Account + you will get a link shortener for every link added to your Tapni profile (as well as the QR Code for every link created).

The good thing is that you don’t need to choose one: you can try one, and then combine it with others to see which one fits you the best, and which one you use the most.

All for free.

If You’re A Team Player

All mentioned types of digital business cards can be upgraded on another level if you’re a team user, and you would like to share those positive benefits of networking with your team members.

Tapni Teams will give you possibility to customise the QR Codes, create personalised templates for Apple/Google Wallet, and to even purchase a custom domain, and then use mydomain.link instead of t.link. In that way you’re making your link-in-bio/digital business card even more customisable.

On top of that, with Tapni Teams you can track how each of those digital business cards is used: how many times your QR Codes is scanned, how many times your link was clicked, how many times the profiles were visited + you’ll be able to track who’s the most active user in your team (a great opportunity to make networking competition, and come up with some nice gift for the best networker).

🎁 Bonus: 2 Additional Ideas On How To Create Digital Business Card For Free

If you’re a fan of smart watches, there’s one cool thing you can do with the Apple Watch.

You can add a QR Code to it, and use it for different purposes - one of them as the use Apple Watch as a digital business card.

Pretty cool if you’d like to go fully digital in your networking game.

The second idea on how to create your digital business card for free is to add the QR Code to your email signature. In that way you won’t only have a professional email signature, but you can allow others to check the additional info about you or download your info directly right after reading your email.

Tapni created a specialised tool for email signatures called MailSign. There are 9 templates that you can use totally for free - it works for Gmail, Outlook, Spark or any other email client. You have the option to add the QR Code to your email signature, make it more effective for your email conversations, because the QR Code can be a practical Call-To-Action - people will be curious to scan the QR Code, and check your link-in-bio, your resume, product pare, or any info you shared with them.

If you want to dive deeper into how networking can improve your everyday job, and how much it is important to nurture your existing business connections, make sure to read some of the articles bellow:

• Top 10 Link In Bio Tools To Share Info Easily
• How Big Brands Are Using QR Codes
• 5 Best Conferences For Product Managers

Create your free digital business card now and explore multiple of features Tapni offers to make your interactions faster and more effective. Visit Tapni to get started and discover how you can integrate modern technology into your daily interactions for maximum impact.