I have posted on the importance of online networking if you are serious about establishing a good website in your industry. It is not a fast way, it is not easy, and it is time consuming. But it is necessary. The importance of networking is now often discussed among internet entrepreneurs

I have developed a sort of program that according to my plans should help me to improve my skills and knowledge and also achieve some sort of recognition among webmasters. I am not sure how much time it will take to see first results, but I hope 6-8 months are enough. Take notice – I do not speak of becoming a well known person in my niche; I talk about a certain degree of recognition among certain webmasters.

Steps are easy to implement and to tell the truth I like this kind of networking.

1. Targets:
a. gain a certain degree of online reputation (desired level: when I feel the necessity to add online reputation monitoring beginners guide to this program),
b. establish new business contacts that may result in new opportunities,
c. closely observe the industry tendencies

2. Time limit: 25-30 minutes daily.
3. Ways to network online:

- webmaster forums/ groups (I have selected five from this list of Top 20 webmaster forums)
- blog comments. To be frank, I did not actively comment blogs up to this week – once I have read what traffic one can expect from commenting the blogs I am about to test this technique shortly. I am signed with 35-40 blogs in my Bloglines account, but I occasionally leave comments. Now I am going to change this.

4. Now I will talk more about forum participation as an efficient online networking method. Take your time to read the forum if you are a newly registered member. Post a few threads and replies. Make your signature – take care not to compete with this very website otherwise the moderator can ban your account. It is not always the case, but I have some experience of this sort.
5. My way of networking with forums functions in this way:

- open a few sub-forums simultaneously. Scan for FAQ, make notes to post on your blog on these topics. Also read those posts where you learn new things or members discuss topics that you find interesting, ask your questions.
- next – open threads with titles that you have experience or knowledge to reply or comment. Try to be helpful or do not post at all.
- PM persons with your offers if you think they might be interested.

Summary: You are welcome to modify my networking program for your industry. I am sure that it is not perfect and there are more experienced people in online networking – I would be glad to make changes and additions to this program based on your comments.

If your voice is heard and recognized online it is a great way to generate natural links. For instance, I know that Darren does do any link exchanges. Why should he if he is a well known online entrepreneur who gets a lot of natural links to his useful posts?

So, if you succeed to become ‘popular’ on the Internet you are doomed to get new offers, natural links and many other benefits. What does it take to gain that reputation? If there was a recipe it would be easy and of no use…

[eminimall]

[tags]online reputation, networking, online communities, forums, web forums, traffic, links bait, social bookmarking, web 2.0, domain names, text-link-ads, links buying, myspace, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, blogs, content generation, google, make money online, work from home, home based job, duplicate content, earn your living online[/tags]

I have been blogging a few times about my belief that online communities are very valuable – they make your website traffic less dependent on search engines, they help you meet great people worldwide – more on developing and owning a forum. I also mention that it is not that easy to attract and keep people on your website. I think that you need two things to start with – a good website (preferably, with a unique concept – something that I lack at the moment) and experience to run online communities, this valuable knowledge.

I have researched quite a lot of online resources and experts on this very topic – how to start, run and promote successful forums. At this time I am in the process of implementing my plan that I post below. I use phpBB forum software and I test the below plan with my photo contest website. I should say that I have designed this plan based on the fact that the photo forum is online for a few months. It is not a plan to start a community from scratch; it is a plan to give a push to a slowly developing one.

1. Latest posts displayed at the pages throughout the website
2. Hire 1-2 moderators from the members – some members are very active with the photo contests, but not with the forum. Design a moderator manual.
3. Benchmark top communities for features mine is missing. It should be either your industry leaders or the ones focused on providing help to forum owners.
4. Install some important missing mods (there are literally hundreds of phpBB mods, but I have made a list of some urgently required): similar threads; refer a friend; community newsletter; user started threads. That’s it for the moment. I have some mods installed by this time – attachment mod and a few others.
5. Get it listed in the forum directories
6. Re-think forum concept and add new sub-forums
7. Use more types of content for the forum: downloads, reviews, tutorials, news, images, surveys, polls, articles, interviews
8. Bring website content to the forum
9. ‘New here’ sticky to help new members
10. Contests (Amazon gift certificates as prizes)
11. Recognize top posters: top posters list, member of the month
12. Active e-mail communication with the active forum members – ideas, feedback, etc
13. Forum ranking system

This is my 13 step program. I wonder if it helps to boost my forums. And how much time it takes. We will see.

Summary: My goal is to implement all above steps and then observe the progress within a certain period of time. If the forum gains enough members and activity then I will accept my program as successful and in part universal and fulfill it on other websites.

If the results are much worse than expected than I will analyze the situation – what is going wrong, make an extra research and develop an extra plan.

I will go in this way until I find the secret of running successful forums. If there is one…

[eminimall]

[tags]networking, online communities, forums, web forums, traffic, links bait, social bookmarking, web 2.0, domain names, text-link-ads, links buying, myspace, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing[/tags]