Manage-Wise

Networking in the virtual community

Sharing information is key to networking, and one of the greatest revolutions in recent years is the use of online opportunities and access to virtual communities. For younger generations this is the norm, but others may need to learn how to use and exploit virtual opportunities.

Richard Lockyer, personal coach, kindly contributed his experience to the following section.

Ping your blog

A blog (short for Web log) started out a bit like an online diary but over time has evolved into much more than this as it developed and expanded to meet people’s needs. As of May 2007, there were estimated to be over 71 million blogs in existence, so it is a great way to network.

Now considered to be an important tool to have in your marketing arsenal, blogs are used by individuals as online diaries or a place to air views on any subject that you can think of.

Once you have set up your blog, you need to start telling people that you are up and running and that you want to hear from them. A great way to start is by ‘pinging’ your blog. This means telling search engines that you have updated your blog. They then pick up on that and give your blog a higher ranking, which makes it easier to find if someone is searching for a subject that is contained in your blog.

On any blog, there is an area where people can come and leave comments, just as you can on theirs, and in doing so they also leave the URLs to their sites. People see these, visit their sites and so bring other strands to the network.

Access other people’s blogs and leave your comments with your URL. If people like what they see they will follow your URL, and very quickly you have brought other people, and possibly some of their friends, into your network.

You can also put links on to your blog page that you think people might find interesting. This adds another strand to your network and gets your link put on other people’s sites and blogs—yet another strand.

Whatever you do, do not start a blog then not update it, as a blog that has not been updated for two months looks like a deserted town in the Wild West!

To get the best results from your blog think of it like a shop that you have to get people to come and look at, and all the pinging and the links as ways to attract people to take a look. With that in mind, do not forget to send an email to your contacts telling them that you have updated your blog so that they keep coming back to look at it.

Be aware of the consequences of your blog and its accessibility to everyone, not just your selected audience. Increasingly, many employers are now checking blogs when researching the background of candidates. With any sharing technology, ensure that there is nothing that could compromise your employment prospects. If you blogged about how boring your job was and how you pretended to work all day while surfing the internet, you cannot be surprised if your employer takes a dim view of this.

Setting up a blog

So how do you set up a blog? There are many sites that offer free blog space. Below is a guide to a free blog website to get you up and running.

• Go to www.blogger.com
• Click where it says ‘Create Your Blog Now’.
• Fill in a user name. This can be anything you want—it is what you will use to sign in to your blog.
• Select a password. This must be at least six characters long. Try to use a combination of numbers and letters, and think of something that others will not be able to guess easily.
• Select a display name. This will be used to sign your blog posts, so choose something that will protect your identity! We recommend that you refrain from using your first and last name or, if you can be easily located with your first name, choose another name.
• Enter an email address. You will need this to register, and later on you can change your preferences so this will not appear on your blog in clear sight of visitors.
• Read the terms of service, then click the box indicating you have done so.
• Click ‘Continue’.
• Give your blog a title. This is what will show at the top of your blog page.
• Choose a Web address for your blog space. This will display in the address bar as http://yourblogspacename.blogspot.com
• Choose a template. Select from the templates the way you would like your blog to look. If you do not like anything you see then just select one to get started.

Once your blog has been created, you are ready to change your personal profile and begin posting!

• Click on ‘Start Posting’ once your blog has been created.
• Create a title for your first posting and write your first post in the text box.
• Click ‘Publish Post’. Publishing your post will make it live on your blog and visible on the Web.
• Each time you add a new post to your blog, you have to publish it before it goes up on the Web.

Forums—exchange of views

Forums are very much like chat rooms where you can go to share opinions and ideas. Whereas the blog is somewhere to display your ideas and opinions, a forum is where you go to exchange them with other people.

Forums are either a site in their own right or exist as part of a website. Forums are very much run on a theme, for example, the Warrior forum specializes in wealth creation and personal development, and there are thousands of themed forums on just about every topic you can imagine.

You often find a forum within a website that allows customers of that website to exchange views and quite often resolve problems that they would otherwise have had to refer to the supplier. Sites selling technical products are a great example. Often the answer for the confused user is quickly supplied by another user through the forum.

Again, like blogs, by commenting regularly on forums and leaving your link you will find yourself being picked up by search engines and improve your rankings.

Excerpt from ‘Brilliant Networking’ by Steven D'Souza. Reproduced with permission © 2009, Dorling Kindersley India Pvt. Ltd. Price: Rs 299.