One of the biggest benefits of professional social networking is the ability to reach people whom you couldn’t reach in your day-to-day life. Whether the barriers are geographic, professional, or economic, some people may be beyond your grasp for in-person networking.

Online social networking, however, opens up a whole new world of opportunity. Social networking reaches a wide demographic audience, skewing toward the middle class and above. CEOs, industry leaders, top politicians, bestselling authors, and numerous celebrities participate in social networking, including many people you would probably like to contact.

Consider the following facts:

Before you start sending invitations to connect with the world’s elite, however, you need to think strategically. Why do you want to connect with these people? What, if anything, is the value to them? In addition, you need to verify that the profile actually does belong to the well-known person in question. On MySpace, for example, a number of the celebrity sites aren’t really connected to the actual celebrity. In general, you’ll have better luck catching the attention of successful people with moderate fame than you will connecting with the truly world famous.

To get some inspiration on how you can reach the movers and shakers in your industry through social networking, let’s look at the experiences of two diverse social networkers.

Bianca is the author of a new novel to be published early next year. She knows that her own marketing efforts are critical to the success of her book, but she doesn’t consider herself very marketing-savvy and, as a stay-at-home mom, she doesn’t have a lot of professional connections. Her publisher has now asked for Bianca’s help in finding testimonials for her book. Although she’s eager to get involved, as a new author she doesn’t know anyone even remotely famous who could provide a testimonial. She had already decided to implement a social networking campaign to publicize her new book when it’s published. Now, in addition to connecting with potential readers, she hopes to network with some key players in her industry who could potentially provide a testimonial for her.

To start, Bianca joins four social networking sites:

Although one of Bianca’s ultimate social networking goals is to connect with potential readers who might buy her book, she knows that her book won’t be available for another six months. So for now, her focus is on connecting with other authors. First, she creates a presence on each site that clearly indicates she is an author whose book will be published later that year by a well-respected publisher.

Next, she sends connection requests to authors in her genre whose work she admires. She personalizes her requests so that they know Bianca is familiar with their work and is serious about her writing career. Bianca also decides to contact a well-known author of pet care books and the head of several organizations devoted to animals, parenting, and the stay-at-home mom lifestyle. Although not everyone is interested in engaging in a conversation with Bianca, several are.

From her initial contacts, Bianca has formed a few online and one in-person friendship. Soon, she has three great testimonials—two from successful authors whose readers may also enjoy her book, and one from someone very active in the stay-at-home mom community, which is also a target readership. Bianca’s social networking strategy has paid off both in finding solid testimonial contacts as well as in laying the groundwork for a social networking marketing campaign once her book is released.

Jason is a speech coach whose business focuses on helping professionals excel at public speaking. Jason has strong credentials and has developed a solid clientele in his local area, but he would like to expand his business to celebrity clients. There’s only one problem: He doesn’t know any celebrities.

Thinking that networking is the solution to his problem, Jason decides to supplement his in-person networking efforts with online social networking. He’s already a member of one professional social network, but he would like to join another site that focuses on an even more exclusive clientele. However, he needs to receive an invitation from an existing member to join.

Rather than trying to connect with celebrities directly, Jason’s strategy is to connect with the people whom they already work with, hoping to receive a referral. He starts by sending connection invitations to individuals in the sports marketing and entertainment PR fields. Insightful comments about public speaking posted on the networking site’s discussion forum further enhance his professional reputation online.

He begins conversations with two good networking contacts, a sports marketing executive whose celebrity athlete client is hoping to transition to a lucrative speaking career, and an entertainment publicist who is a member of the elite network he would like to join. These connections soon pay off for Jason. He receives an invitation from the publicist to join the elite networking site and an offer to coach the well-known athlete, who becomes Jason’s first celebrity client.