Industry meet-ups used to be the way forward to develop connections for work. However, today networking involves a more complex process as most people are working in a global setting with clients or vendors across the globe. In order to rectify this gap, some steps have been identified. Proactive outreach needs to be mastered whereby contacts are being identified not by a simple LinkedIn search but by developing relations over a period of months. Another method could be to attract contacts to oneself. This needsdigital marketing for own self by creating top notch content in diverse form such as videos, podcasts, publications or blogs. Another method would be a combination of in-person and virtual forms. Before any meet-up like a conference or event, one can go through the list of people to get acquainted with and these people can be sent mailers or LinkedIn connection requests. In this manner, some ‘warm leads’ are booked before the actual event.

Source: https://hbr.org/2016/10/networking-with-people-you-cant-meet-in-person