Saturday, November 17th 2007, 1:21 AM 
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As a member of pretty much all of the major social networks, I think
I'm just as much an "expert" as the next guy when it comes to what
makes them tick. I've been in social networking since there was such a
thing, so I've been following the trends of the web 2.0. era and how
it's evolved over time.
One of the first communities I was involved with was Adland Pro. community.adlandpro.com and from one of the forums on Adland I was introduced to Ryze. www.ryze.com From there it was Bebo. www.bebo.comand then on to Huminity, but that's another story. Humity is basically
a chat room and although it still exists, members have fallen off a lot
and
it's nothing like it once was. You'd be lucky to find one active network there.
We've come a long way since these networks that pioneered the
social networking arena were set up. Now we have everything from music
networks to video dating and video resume's on Friendswin. viralurl.com
But what is it about social networking that makes it so special?
Social networking is a way to present yourself as someone who is
an expert. Even if you're only an expert at one small thing, even if
it's just growing a garden or tending a household or raising a child.
Also social networking makes it easier to find people who share
your interests. And though this sharing process we can relate to each
other in many different ways. We can share e-mails, messenger id's and
phone numbers, get to know each other in a very real way. And we can
find business partners who will work with us, find people who live in
our home town, or just meet and market with people all over the world.
There are some who make it bad for everyone however, and those
people are the ones who spam or send out comments that are basically a
waste of energy.
When you use social networking to send out spam you're shooting
your own self in the foot. People who join social networks are normally
not into business opportunities and don't want to be advertised to. So
when you do this, they're not likely to want to be your friend any
more.
The best way to manage your business links in social networks is
to incorporate them in with readable content. You want to give
something of value that will make them want to come back and see what
else you've added today. Update your profile and blogs on a regular
basis to give search engine spiders something new to feed on. This is
what will help you in the long run.
Don't just set up a quick profile and expect to get signups that
will buy your products and services. What you want to do is present
yourself as someone who knows a little something about ...SOMETHING.
And there will be someone who will want to know it too. They'll come to
your profile simply by typing a key word or phrase looking for a
particular opportunity, product, or service, and your key words will be
a perfect match...if you do this right.
Also make sure that you tag and attach keywords that are pertinent
to the content that you're presenting. In other words, if you write an
article about dogs, don't try to tag it with key words like marketing,
or business opportunities. Use tags like dog food, yorkies, dog sites,
getting rid of fleas..or whatever else pertains to your article and
include these words throughout your article to call the spiders to your
page.
If you're looking to make money, try adding coupons, or linking to
affiliate products that pertain to what you're writing about. If you
want to write about books for instance, sign up for amazon.com
affiliate program and add links and pictures of books you'd like to
read or have read. Recommend them to people and write reviews. And you
might make some sales while you're at it.
I hope this has helped a few people to make sense of all the
social networking and why it's so helpful and popular now. If you want
to know more howto stuff, please go to my Social Networking blog on
Blogger and check out the videos there.
tagme2007.blogspot.com
Sincerely,
Rebecca Beasley
