Networking

When I have a down day, I find that it is not because I am lazy or tired, but there is a lack of inspiration and motivation. I attempt to feed myself from others that have done great things before me — those that have been willing to give up the normal life to achieve greatness. I won’t lie, I hope to achieve greatness as well in the future; we all do. But, it is up to each one of us to find things that motivate and inspire our minds, and these following quotes are a few of my favorites (of many others) from some great people in the past.

“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.”—Richard Bach

“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”—Italian Proverb

“He who begins many things finishes but few.”—Italian Proverb

“It’s a funny thing about life. If you refuse to settle for anything less than the best, that’s what it will give you.”—W. Somerset Maugham

“A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.”—Confucius

“If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.”—Confucius

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”—Thomas Edison

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”—Albert Einstein

“Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busy work. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow. Now. Now! Not tomorrow!”—Og Mandino

Have any inspirational material? Please, feel free to post a comment and help fellow bloggers that might need that boost of motivation to keep them going. I also would love to see some great inspirational quotes.

I’m more fortunate than many bloggers in that I was able to cultivate a very successful blog. Granted, I’m not earning thousands each month with it, but it’s enough for me to hire someone to help out and also put something aside to create other blogs. With a couple of thousand visitors each day, I do much better than most who blog about freelance writing.

I’m often asked how I built up my traffic, what methods worked for me. I always attribute my success to social networking. When I first began, I spread the word through various writing forums and traffic started to slowly trickle in. From there I began leaving thoughtful comments at other blogs. I didn’t drop links or get spammy, but I did enter my details into the signature line. Even more visitors stopped by. I began linking to other bloggers and they showed their love by linking to me in return. Soon I had 100 visitors, a couple of months later, 500. After about a year about 1000 people were visiting Freelance Writing Jobs and I was even starting to earn a bit from Adsense.

When I first began this blog, there wasn’t any Digging. Even then, my lists of job leads weren’t really Diggable anyway. My traffic mostly came by participating in forums and blogs for writers, work at home moms, freelancers and bloggers. The word spread because others began to consider FWJ an important resource for writers.

Nowadays I still visit the same forums and even more blogs. I also encourage others to network on my blog. I offer contests, such as the one going on now for the top commenter, and post a discussion topic every day. I made my blog a place for freelance writers to network. Now others come to my blog to socially network and drop their own links in the signature. As a result, I found some more cool places to go and share the link love. Many writers and bloggers now link to my discussion topics and it can get rather viral.

More than two years later I’m of the impression social networking is the single most important thing you can do to build traffic and create a buzz about your blog. Of course there are social media tools such as Digg and Stumble Upon to help you out, but many times they provide a one time spike in traffic. I’m of the impression that if you visit others, they’ll always return the favor, and if you provide useful input in forums, people will visit you often to see what else you have to say.

TechCrunch has the news. And you’ll want to prepare for this a few years down the road.

Getting a blog off the ground is hard work and takes a lot of effort but believe me when I say that in the long term it is worth it. Networking with other bloggers and professionals within your niche is essential, especially for new blogs.

Here’s a tip!

Visit a high profile blog within your niche – leave comment, and give your own opinions and views on the topic. Ask questions, and make sure that you do not spam, or leave any links which are not appropriate to the topic of discussion.

The result!

I did exactly this and have a link to my blog on the likes of Conde Nast Traveller, USA Today, and other high profile blogs. Having links on authority blogs like this helps you rank better in the search engines and also drives visitors to your blog.

Yahooed!

How many have you visited Yahoo Answers lately? I have, and I try to at least weekly. Why? Well, if someone is asking a question that I can answer, I reply, and where it asks you for a source you put your own blog.

Make sure the question is relating to your niche, and make an effort to write a concise answer. This drives traffic to your blog because as people search for the question in the search engines Yahoo Answers usually ranks quite well.

Have a great New Years Eve, and Happy New Year!

Promoting websites online, just like in the offline world, is about finding the right people with the right resources and having them help you get the word out. By yourself, you are nowhere near as effective as when you have a network of contacts and friends working together to help you promote your new venture.

How do we do this? There are three key steps:

1. Building the network
2. Making the right contacts
3. Leveraging the network

This article discusses the above topics and shows you how to build a network of contacts you can use to get more traffic to your website. That’s not the only purpose of such a network – you can use a network in various ways – community intelligence, resource pool, business opportunities, and much more.

In short, if you want to learn how to build your social network of contacts, this article is for you. Read on…

The Big Networking Secret: It’s Easy

Now before we get to the list (I don’t mind if you scroll down, but this next bit sets the foundation for it), let me explain what I mean by “it’s easy“: using your personal social network to promote your website is quite difficult if you don’t have many contacts / the right contacts – saying that social networking doesn’t work because you don’t have influential people on your list is a cop-out. Similarly, you cannot expect to build a list of A-list contacts overnight – building a network of useful contacts takes time; relationships are cultivated and trust is built through reciprocal actions over time.

So what’s easy about it? If you remove the unrealistic expectations and instead focus on the basic principles that can help you build large, influential social networks over time, you’ll find that it’s a relatively simple and straightforward process.

Networking is as easy as making new friends. If you can make new friends, then you can network. But making new friends does take work. So it’s not magic.

At any time, you’ll find successful entrepreneurs using the help of their contacts and friends to launch ventures with brilliant success – there is a method behind this ‘magical’ approach, and you don’t need to buy a $999 course to teach you this method.

The right advice (say, something like this article you’re reading), some common sense (use your own judgment or just ask for help) and concentrated action and commitment will get you more than what an expensive course can teach you.

Alright then – with that out of the way, it’s time to get to the list.

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1. Make New Friends By Helping Others

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The basis of an effective social network is a steady stream of new contacts – a network doesn’t have any impact unless there are enough people to make a difference.

The habit of making new friends and helping others out without asking for anything upfront is one that takes time to cultivate and your adoption of this habit depends on how you treat others. If you’re naturally outgoing, you’ll find it easier to get in touch with and contact new people. If you don’t have any hangups towards helping others for free, then you’ll be one step ahead when it comes to sowing the seeds of a new relationship.

Find New Friends

This step will stump you but in fact it’s the easiest of them all – simply flock to those places where people of similar interests are hanging out, and make a point to participate in the general discussion. An example of such a place is Performancing, where I and many others have flocked to over the years, gradually become a part of the community and now find new opportunities each day.

The leading blogs in your niche are a good way to get started. Forums (for networking) are a personal favourite because of the amazing returns although they require more commitment and personal involvement to make it work.

Also, remember that in such new communities you’ll find avenues towards other communities as well – it pays to pick and choose those communities where you can find the right balance between value, investment and fun (it doesn’t HAVE to be a chore, you know).

Help Others

Make it a point to provide helpful information / advice / support to at least one person each day. This is a major stumbling block for people because of the personal investment this requires but once you realise multiplier effect that’s attached to each ‘effort’ of yours, you’ll be surprised at why more people aren’t doing this.

Just help others. Quite often you’ll hear people voicing their problems / concerns in public forums / communities that you’ll be frequenting – if it takes a few minutes of your time to point them in the right direction, do it right there and then.

Invest in others. As they grow and build up their resources and their own networks, your own network will be growing as well thanks to their efforts.

It’s also worth pointing out that extra attention (bordering on stalking / invasion of personal privacy) will freak people out, so if you just *love* to help people, you might want to tone things down a bit.

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2. Selective Networking: Kiss Ass

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Ryan explains this far better than I can in his article, so let’s listen to what he has to say:

I call it selective (back)networking and here’s the idea: the internet is just like any other human network. There are hierarchies of authority. If you want to be successful, you need to move up the hierarchy.

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The key to building a (back)network is to intentionally and selectively seek out people who 1) have power and leverage 2) are smart and capable and 3) are fair in their online relationships. By building up a social “backbone” of good friends in high-places, you’ll be able to execute your plans a lot faster, realize profit a lot quicker, and avoid burn-out a lot easier (ten shoulders are better than one).

“But Ryan Caldwell, you’re already successful. What about those of us who are just getting started?”

Suck up and kiss ass.

That’s it. That’s how you get into my good graces. Start doing me favors and I’ll send some love your way. Ask me to do you a favor before you’ve proven your worthiness to me, and I’ll ignore you. Completely and utterly ignore you. But if you’ve got something to offer me, something that I truly benefit from…then you’ve got a friend.

This isn’t easy advice to follow – especially if you’ve skipped step 1, where you adopt the mindset of making new friends and helping people. On the other hand, once you realise the value that networking brings to you, the natural progression is to go after the right contacts.

Identify Powerful Contacts

Why do you think people bend over backwards when it comes to internet celebrities like John Chow and Matt Cutts? These people have an influential, authoritative voice in the blogosphere. When they talk, people listen. When they point, people follow.

Your end game is to have people like these on your side, so that they point to you and people (and traffic and revenue) start flowing in your direction.

Identify the powerful contacts in your niche (and in niches related to it) – then figure out how to get in their good books.

Make Yourself Valuable First

As Ryan says, you have to prove your own value to people who are vastly more influential than you – this translates into building your own online worth by playing with the smaller fish first. It’s a step-by-step process – you won’t shoot for Darren Rowse if you can’t get into Deb‘s good books, so work your way up the ladder by gathering momentum.

Chris Garrett’s excellent article on ‘Positioning’ is a good intro into how to make yourself and your website more valuable.

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3. Learn and Practice the Art of Following Up

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It’s one of those things that you learn from experience, although recently a friend (and new influential contact) Steve Amoia drove this point home when we were talking about building a network of contacts in the footballing world.

The basic idea is this: every time you ask your network (or a contact) for their help, follow up by thanking them for their input, giving them as much credit as possible and by reciprocating the favor when asked for. If you want to by cynical about it, then consider that people don’t mind helping as long as they see a benefit in it – whether it’s the other person stoking their ego or a reciprocation of that favor or even a monetary benefit.

Learn what your contacts value and when following up, reciprocate in a way that they will appreciate the most.

And to borrow from Nick’s excellent “increase search engine traffic” article:

Be generous – if you respect your network, and work hard to be part of the community surrounding your topic, the rewards can really pay off — never abuse it, it tends to backfire in all kinds of horrible ways.

Wrapping Up

Online marketing is about people and long-term results, not about algorithms or short-term gains. If you start investing in your social network now, you’ll reap the benefits many times over in the future.

In this article, I won’t talk about how to network. There are great articles out there about that subject. Here are two that have helped me.

Ahmed just wrote a great article about 3 ways to immediately improve your networking skills. Also, check out Caroline Middlebrook’s 7 Ways to Connect With People in Your Niche.

Networking is becoming more important in link building because the web is more socially oriented than before. Also, webmasters are much less likely to give links away for free. Many webmasters today know about SEO and link building. They’re hesitant to freely link to a competing site. Unless you’re a friend or have cash, it’s hard to get links these days especially from quality sites. And cash is losing it’s effectiveness, because Google’s been cracking down on paid links. Many sites are cutting down on selling links.

But the biggest reason networking helps is because it forces you to focus on other people. Quality networking means taking time to know your contacts. Follow their blogs for awhile. Read their posts. Find out which subniches they’re passionate about. Find out which topics they would like to learn more about.

Through networking, you can figure out what your contacts want.

Get Those Links

After you’ve taken time to follow certain bloggers, here are some ways to leverage your contacts and get some links.

Guest Post

Quality guest posting is about writing posts that fit well on another person’s blog. Here are two ways to do this: elaboration and filling in a gap.

Elaboration is writing guest posts that riff off the posts already on the guest blog. You see this well with the Copyblogger guest authors. In their posts, they frequently link to other posts on Copyblogger. Check out the last three guest posts: 1, 2, 3. This shows that not only do they know their stuff but they can connect it to previous content. Integration adds value to any blog and added value is what quality bloggers are looking for.

Filling in a gap is writing posts about a subtopic that’s not covered very well on the guest blog. I write for an online business blog. Some time back I wrote a post about not being an expert in PPC. A PPC blogger emailed recently referring to my post. He offered to write guest posts about PPC. I gladly took his offer.

How do you get a blogger to publish your guest post? John Chow has good advice on this point:

Getting your post onto a big blog can not only give you a lot of credibility, it can also send you a lot of traffic. The bigger blogs generally are quite fussy about the type of guest posts they will accept. They’re looking for quality that is on the same level as their posts. You should only send your best work.

I get bloggers emailing me about guest posting all the time. The best way to get a post onto John Chow dot Com is to email me the full post. Don’t send me an email asking me to reply if I want to read the post. I won’t. Just send the full post and I’ll read it and decide if it should be posted.

Well-known, quality bloggers get a lot of emails. Instead of playing email tag, email them with a short introduction of yourself and include your full guest post. If they like it and it fits their blog, they’ll publish it.

Finally, don’t forget to insert an author box at the end of your post.

Promote Your Best Content

Many bloggers like to link out. They like to link to good content and they like to link to friends. So, create a post or information product that your contacts would enjoy and find useful. Then, email them and point them to your content. I don’t generally ask for a link. I write something like: “I just wrote this post and I thought you and your readers would find it useful. Feel free to offer feedback.” If your content is good enough, you’ll get a link.

If you have a quality product, don’t be afraid to give out free copies to high profile bloggers. They will often give you a positive review, which will lead to many sales.

One disclaimer: don’t overdo promotion. There’s a fine line between spam and promotion. I like what 45n5 says:

Never email somebody more than once (twice max) per month for promoting your content.

Unless you know a blogger really well, try not to promote more than one thing a month.

Interview

Interviews work well if you have good questions. And a way to come up with good questions is to know the interviewee well. As you network, you’ll get to know some interesting bloggers in your niche. Interview the high profile ones. Ask them questions that allow them to talk about what makes them interesting – their passions, unique stories, expertise, and accomplishments.

With great interviews, oftentimes the interviewee will link to you and tell his friends about it. This leads to many other quality links.

Feedback

How have you used networking to get quality links? What are some other ways networking helps in building links?

As a blogger residing in a third world country, networking opportunities are limited for me. Logistical problems mean that it is bloody hard to hop over to the US for conferences – and in many cases, us non-US bloggers are at a disadvantage in terms of real networking opportunities.

However, if you’re a non-US blogger (or a non-US/UK blogger), there are several other networking opportunities available for you. Let’s start with the easiest, managing online networking.

It goes without saying that for maximum success, you need to set goals, figure out the best way to achieve them and then get busy moving from point A to point B. It’s the same with networking.

A. Online Networking

Harness the power of email, instant messaging, forums, blogging, Skype, LinkedIn and social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Embrace the online medium and learn how everything works and how you can use it to your benefit.

Some tips:

1. Write Effective Emails

There’s great advice on this subject by Merlin Mann, Guy Kawasaki and the Seton Hill University.

While you should practice the Tim Ferriss formula for dealing with email, it also helps that when you actually do read and reply to your email you do it in a manner that gleans maximum results AND doesn’t require you to go back and forth like you would in an informal IM session.

2. Treat IM conversations as ‘Deadline’ Meetings

Set an agenda before you start, deal with all issues and come out with a plan of action by the end of the conversation. In fact, you should adopt this mindset for every business-related discussion you have, not just IMs.

Like I’ve said earlier, there are times when IM becomes a necessity. However in 99% of the cases, IM is a means to an end. When you’re networking, you have limited time and more importantly you want to deliver value, not just waste the other person’s time.

There is one exception – beyond initial contact, there is always a time when you need to build a good rapport with your contacts, and sometimes the least time-consuming method to do so is IM (I can hold 6 conversations on IM at the same time, I can’t do that on the phone).

3. Master Online Social Networks

The rewards are amazing (and I’m not talking about being a Digg power user). The contacts and relationships you build by participating in forums and social networks are invaluable plus the sheer speed of the social web makes it possible for you to find out about breaking news in real time (if your work depends on being first with the news or acting quickly on new information, this is again critical).

4. Online is NOT Everything

Despite our reliance on the Internet, nothing beats a face-to-face meet or a talk on the phone in terms of building trust. I remember how I had introduced myself to Liz at the beginning and she refused to help me until we’d talked and she could confirm that I was a real person (I think the charming voice helped as well 🙂 ).

The point is, contact and relationship building is incomplete without the human element. In the absence of a physical meeting, use Skype or Google Talk to talk to your contacts and build strong relationships.

B. Develop A Local Network

Living online is a major obstacle if you want to build a network of business contacts in the real world where you live. Most people will still prefer doing business face-to-face if they can make it happen, and that leaves you with no excuse to not pursue building a local network of contacts in your city / country.

Some suggestions:

5. Use Online Networks To Find Local Contacts

I’ve used my blogging, forums and LinkedIn to attract local business and contacts, and I wasn’t even trying to do that at the time.

Use LinkedIn, Facebook, the blogging interweb and forums (as well as any / all contacts you have) to discover local contacts. You might be pleasantly surprised at what you find.

6. Meet Recruiters

Recently I had the opportunity to meet a local recruiter. Usually I’d shun such contacts at first thought, because the last thing on my mind is to work for a ‘boss’. However, recruiting companies also offer you the chance to build your assets – that is, acquire access to a resource pool that you can later use as leverage for your own projects or any outsourcing project that you happen to snag as a consultant.

Yesterday I was talking to an entrepreneur who wants to take over the world (not literally) and he asked me if I knew any good programmers – I told him I had access to a recruiting company and his eyes lit up (I’m assuming, of course, since he was sitting in the US).

Don’t pass up opportunities to build your assets. Not only will they help you in your projects in the future but they will also make you more valuable as a contact, which will eventually mean that people will come to you instead of the other way around.

7. Meet Local Reps

Have you met folks working for Google in your country? I suggest you seek them out and do so at the first opportunity. While the setup is different depending on which country you’re living in, chances are that you’ll be able to network with people from Google / Yahoo / Microsoft / etc etc at local conferences, seminars and trade shows.

From my (very limited) experience, local reps are almost always evangelists and as a result have a vast array of contacts and opportunities themselves. Get in, make yourself useful and nurture the relationship.

C. The Art of Successful Networking

For all the tips and advice, the important bits are foundational and have little to do with networking itself – I’m not here to preach how you should conduct yourself, on the other hand these traits will amplify your networking efforts.

8. Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Have you ever met a person who talks a big game but at the end of the day they rarely have anything to show for it? Would you recommend such a person as a business contact to your network?

Talking a good game is important, but it’s even more important to have the track record to back you up.

9. Be Open and Available

The Internet is a blessing and a curse – it gives us instant access to everything but it also makes us anonymous (some might say that’s a blessing in disguise). It also hits your social life quite hard, so you’ll have to make an extra effort to get your butt out of your chair and move out of your house to meet people.

When it comes to networking, especially when you’re starting out, you need to make it as easy as possible for people to contact you and be ready to meet / talk to new people whenever the opportunity arises. It’s more of a mindset than a habit.

Of course, there’s the obvious exception – if you’re as busy as Matt Cutts or Brad Callen and you’re getting more than 5 emails a minute, you probably need several filters (read: assistants) in between you and people wanting to talk to you (with the odd IM / separate email account for ‘urgent / private’ stuff).

10. Understand How People Tick

You’re in the peoples’ business, so you need to know how people think, act and react and modify your approach accordingly. This is one of those cases where reading that self-help stuff works (make friends, influence people and all that). Learn it, practice it and use this knowledge to your advantage.

So there you have it – solid, actionable advice to improve your networking even if you can’t attend those cool conferences that all the big boys seem to be going to. If you’re looking for a shortcut, here’s the best bet (even better than attending local meets, which was so obvious that I refuse to mention it in the 10 points above): hitch a ride as a consultant with a local firm who will send you to such a conference. Alternatively, sign up as a consultant / contractor to a US-based firm who would (cross your fingers) eventually call you to a meet / training seminar / etc.

What is your #1 networking tip?

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN – there are many ‘new’ platforms through which we can now ‘network’ with our peers and colleagues. In theory, you can never have enough social networks, but there has to be some limiting criteria lest we get overwhelmed and end up ‘networking’ 24/7 with the work piling on our virtual desks.

If a platform:

1. Keeps it simple
2. Encourages time-saving
3. Provides access to a group of like-minded people with similar interests

then it’s worth adopting.

There are very few platforms that check all 3 boxes. Instant messaging (IM) has it’s place (how would you get your business done without Skype?) but it’s neither time-saving (you could argue that it cuts down on the lag that emails introduce but IM doesn’t ‘encourage’ time-saving) nor does it give you instant access to a group of people (one-to-one communication).

Facebook and similar social apps have a similar problem with time. As bloggers and generally as people who have non-traditional jobs, time management is especially important. If you’re going to spend 2 hours playing with facebook apps, that time’s not coming back (and depending on how much you charge per hour, that’s anywhere between $50 to $1000 of consulting fees lost).

Don’t get me wrong – social apps are excellent networking (and marketing) tools, however if I had to drop something from my list in order to get work done those would be the first I’d drop.

I like LinkedIN a lot primarily because it keeps things simple and doesn’t require too much time to keep updated or network with others. I hired the designer for Soccerlens through LinkedIN and for that alone I’m grateful because he’s done an excellent job in the past year or so. I’ve also hired programmers and writers this way. Everyone’s experiences are different but if you’re getting work done in less time, why not?

Forums offer a balanced blend of all three options. You meet like-minded people, it’s easier to ‘switch off’ and spend less time than you would IMing or Facebooking, and they’re extremely simple to use.

Earlier this week I talked about ‘giving more to get more’ – and while that approach works great on blogs (you reach a much greater audience), the opportunity to build lasting professional relationships is a lot higher in forums. With fewer people involved, you can give each person more attention that you would be able to through a blog.

What do you think? Are forums better for networking than the newer breed of tools available to us?