Work At Home Business Options

Posts Tagged ‘networking forums’

When you join a Direct Sales Company, you are often told to start marketing your business to your warm market.

For those of you who don’t know what that means…it means making a list of your family and friends, the people that you personally know. Your next step is to start contacting them and pitching your new business to them.

This is a good idea to get you started, however…you can not rely on your ‘warm market’ to make your business a success.

All great network marketers will tell you that you need to step outside of your warm market (comfort zone) and market your business to people you don’t know. To do this…you will need to advertise, market and network your business to strangers.

If you need some ideas on how to advertise or network your business, you can find some specific posts here on our blog on those subjects to help get you started.

The most important thing you can do for your home Direct Sales business is to think ‘outside’ of your warm market. Get out of your comfort zone…make some new friends, get involved in your community and join some business networking groups.

As you expand your horizons, you are expanding your business. Friends and family can only carry you and your business so far…in the end, it’s up to you to make your business flourish.

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When it comes to promoting your business online, I see way too many people promoting their businesses the wrong way. Here are a few things you need to be aware of in regards to spam.

1. Do not join online forum boards aka work at home mom communities to just spam business ads. If you do this, you will be labled as a spammer by everyone who participates in the wahm communities.

2. You never send out sales promotions or business opportunity information to people via email, unless they have specifically asked for the information. Manually adding folks to your email list is not the way to go. Furthermore, sending out all your business information to people who are in your personal address book is another big mistake.

3. If you are participating on social networking sites such as facebook, myspace, linked-in and twitter and do nothing but post business information…again you will be labled as a spammer. You never send a private message via a social networking site with business information in it…to someone who didn’t request it.

These days I am seeing way too many home business professionals marketing and advertising thier businesses the wrong way.

The quickest way to ruin your online business reputation is to run around spamming other people.

Take the time out of your schedule to learn and educate yourself on the proper way to advertise, market and network your home business online.

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When it comes to using the social media site Twitter, there are a few Do’s and Don’ts you need to be aware of.

Let’s start with the Do’s

1. Fill out your twitter profile so that others can learn a little more about you and your Direct Sales business. If possible, upload a small picture of yourself or a small business graphic. However, you will find that most twitter users prefer to see a personal photo compared to a business photo.

2. You will need to be consistent with your tweeting. You can’t just log in once a day, post 2 tweets and then jet out. You need to spend a little time tweeting about what is going on with your day or your business, so that you can build a relationship with your followers.

3. Try to connect with your followers by responding to their tweets or re-tweeting their messages. Twitter can be useful when it comes to business relationship building, if you take the time to converse with the people who are following you.

Here are a few Don’ts

1. Don’t send automatic direct messages. There are numerous online services where you can sign up and have the service automatically send out a direct message, to every person who decides to follow you. Experienced tweeters find this to be impersonal and very annoying.

2. Never spam your business website links or business information via direct message unless a specific person has requested the information from you.

3. Don’t sit on twitter 24 hours a day spamming business links. If you are only there for self business promotion and not there to build business relationships, you will be quickly labeled as a twitter spammer.

When it comes to networking on social media websites like twitter…it is important to make connections with those you are following. In a nutshell, business networking means building quality relationships with other like-mind individuals.

This article is copyright 2008 by Shelly Hill, All Rights Reserved. This article can not be reprinted without Shelly’s permission and/or proper credit with live links given to the author who wrote the content who is Shelly Hill.

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As a home business owner I spend a lot of time online networking as it’s an important part of my Direct Sales Business.

What is Business Networking? According to wikipedia, “Business networking is a marketing method by which business opportunities are created through networks of like-minded business people.” If you can’t go out to local business events, networking online can be a viable alternative.

Why should you spend time networking your business online? By networking online, you can meet new home business professionals and learn from them. Those who have been running a successful business can share with you…what works and doesn’t work. These discussions are usually based around advertising, marketing and recruiting ideas. In return, you can share with others what has worked for you. Networking is a 2-way street, it’s better to give…than to receive.

In addition to learning more about business, you can make new contacts which can lead to new recruits, party bookings and new customers. If you are looking to expand into the online market, you will need to learn how to network and advertise online.

What groups should you join? I recommend going to a major search engine and doing a keyword search for the following: business networking groups and/or work at home discussion boards. A list will come up with the most popular online sites. You will want to join a few groups and fill out your online profile. Once you have that completed, post an introduction to the group and join in on some of the business discussions.

When you network online, you need to be consistent with your efforts. You will want to participate in the groups, 2-3 times a week. By being consistent, you are being visible…which means you are allowing others to get to know you and your business.

When business networking is done properly, you will increase your business knowledge and make new business contacts. These contacts will lead to new sales and new team members. Success doesn’t happen over night, but you will see positive results if you keep at it.

This exclusive article is copyright 2009 by Shelly Hill. All Rights Reserved. This article can not be reprinted without Shelly’s Permission & it is exclusive to this web site.
NOTE: This article is Exclusive to Work At Home Business Options and can not be reproduced without her permission.

Copyright © 2009 Work At Home Business Options and Shelly Hill

Have you considered starting your own online forum board? If so, have you thought about everything that would be involved in starting a new online community?

These days, there are thousands of online message boards for just about any subject matter imaginable. When thinking about starting your own community, there are a few things you need to consider before getting started.

1. What kind of community would you like to have?

example: work from home, business, craft and hobbies, blogging, sports, general chit chat, etc.

2. Is there a need for this type of forum board?

Let’s use Work At Home as our example. These days you can find hundreds, if not thousands of work at home message boards.

Problem: All of these web sites are trying to attract the same type of members.

If you are considering a work at home forum board, how can you make your board unique from the hundreds that already exist?

Solution: Narrow down your focus! Have your work at home message board geared towards one of these areas:

a. City and State
b. Grandparents who work from home
c. Single Parents who work from home
d. Independent home business owners
e. Telecommuting
f. Virtual online businesses
g. Direct Sales businesses

3. Do you have the time to run an online community?

As an experienced forum owner, I can tell you that I spend a minimum of 1 hour a day, 6 days a week, managing my online community. I spend a minimum of 2-3 hours every week just advertising my community so that I can attract new members to my forum boards.

4. Can you afford to run your own online community?

There are some free online message board providers online, however, I personally think you should avoid them. The majority of them have unwanted advertisements on the forum and limited administration control.

I recommend getting your own domain name and web hosting. You can do this affordably for around $110 per year. With this option, you will have complete control over your community.

5. Have you educated yourself about the technical aspects of installing and running your own forum boards?

There are several great articles and How-To guides on the Internet. Go to any of the major search engines and do a keyword search for ‘How To Create A Forum Board’ to find them.

6. Are you in this for the long haul?

Building an online community is not a short-term thing. Members who spend their time on your forum board want to know that the community will be there for years to come.

If you have answered YES to all of the above questions, then it’s time for you to become a forum board owner. With some hard work and patience, you can have a very successful online community.

When it comes to doing business online, your online business reputation is everything. It is important to remember this when you are networking on forum boards and in business networking groups.

When people ‘feel’ they have been ‘wronged’ by a business or business person, they are not afraid to post about their experience. All it takes is one ‘bad act’ and the entire Internet work at home community will know about it.

Here are a few ways on how you can ruin your online business reputation by networking on forum boards.

1. Join forum boards and only post spam ads.

2. Join business boards and post nonsense every day topics.

3. Steal another person’s business ad content and then post it as your own.

4. Steal another person’s business article and then post it as your own.

5. Always respond to other members posts with redundant one-liner replies. Members want ‘real’ input, advice and answers, so if you want to ruin your online business reputation, keep on replying with everyday one-liners.

6. If someone decides to do business with you, take their money and run.

7. Disrespect other people for their thoughts and ideas. Remember, your opinion is the only one that counts.

8. Make all of your message board postings all about yourself. We all love hearing from a bragger 24/7.

9. Consistently make typos and grammar mistakes in your message board posts.

10. Use vulgar and derogatory language in your postings.

11. Consistently lie. These days, you can find out just about anything about any person with a little online research.

12. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. So, after you have picked a few fights, riled up an entire message board community, its now time to move on to the next community and do it all over again.

If you want to build a professional online business reputation, you will want to avoid all of these common mistakes.

This article is copyright 2009 by Shelly Hill, All Rights Reserved.