I spotted this great article on LinkedIn by Pam Ross. She offers great tips on how to get better at networking. A summary is:
Use Twitter: to join chats about things you are interested in, to search for people locally, follow event hashtags and attend them.
Use her rule of 3: look for odd-numbered groups of people: 1, 3 or 5, set a small goal of meeting 3 people
Think of how you can help people connect with other people in your network.
The full article can be found at:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20140930103316-12715656-how-i-stopped-sucking-at-networking