Networking Explained (Part 4): Where to Network

Knowing where to effectively market will take a little research. Knowing your target market will have a big benefit as you find places that you can use your networking skills, but may also bring you some sales. Social sites, forums, and blogs are great ways to get free publicity and put your expertise to work.

Social sites have become all the rage. One such site that is built to help other work at home Mom’s is www.MyWAHMSpace.com. Networking needs to be your focus even though there is room for more personal information as well. Join in groups and really get into the social sites. Not only do these sites have many members, but the visitor traffic is very high. Use your profile page and site blogs to get across what you are an expert in and make the best use of the traffic to your page with clickable links to your sites and blogs.

Forums have been around as long as internet marketing. I love the forums that I frequent. I have learned invaluable information and made lifelong friends on these forums. Every friend I have made is now another marketer for me because when someone asks about a subject in my area of expertise, my friends will send them to me and vice-versa. Forums are where you have to be careful of looking like a spammer. It is important to be active in the forums and make helpful posts. My favorite forum is www.MommysHelperCommunity.com. It is a friendly environment that is all about working from home with just enough personal talk to get me away from business for a few minutes a day. No one likes a spam and go poster. So find some forums that are a good fit for you and visit them weekly. It only takes a few minutes a week to get some good posts up. And don’t forget to use your signature line to it’s fullest with taglines and links.

Blogs are an easy way to work on finding networking opportunities. Find your target market and do a search for that term with the word blog added to the end. For example: women’s weight loss blog. Now I can find some blogs specifically about that topic. I’ll comment on those that I feel I can leave some good information at and a link back to my women’s wellness blog will be included in the reply post. Make sure that you are actually leaving information, not a simple, “great information, thank you for the post” comment. Those are also considered spam and many bloggers won’t approve your post without relevant information included.

These three quick networking areas can help you get a big jump on targeted traffic to your site. Use them appropriately and you will see heavier traffic to your site. Targeted traffic will bring you more sales because they knew what they were clicking to get more information about.

Val Selby is co-owner of www.MyWAHMSpace.com a site dedicated to the true art of networking. Helping other Mom’s in business and their personal life is her passion as a business owner and personal fitness trainer. She also owns www.NetworkingWAHM.com another resource for your business.

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