The Internet as a Social and Business Network

Working out of a home office can be an isolating experience. Certain personalities just can't handle it, while other do just fine. Personally, the transition from busy cubicle life with all the background noise and distractions to the relative quiet of the office in my home was pretty nice.

The situation has changed a bit with my additional role as a stay-at-home dad, but there's still a limited amount of personal contact with the "outside" world – and a definite lack of office colleagues. Except for my son of course, who at nearly 11 months of age has definite opinions how I should run my business. I'm just having challenges interpreting his advice.

So it just happens that I'm discovering the social networks that have developed (and are continuing to develop) on the internet and how they're not just for teenagers with self esteem issues. These internet based social networks have the potential to be a much more powerful implementation of the concept of business networking groups like BNI. The additional strength comes partly from the ability to easily refer business to others, and even make a comission directly from that referral.

I've been a regular user of internet based forums for some time, although it has mostly been as "lurker" gleaning information on technical and product support issues. More recently I've been more active as a contributor as it turns out there's quite a bit of experience in my background that is useful for others. And it actually feels good to contribute and find that someone else finds my contribution valuable.

Cool!

From forums, there's a natural progression to find other people blogs (like this one) and contribute to the conversation by posting a comment. I like to find blogs that are obviously under the care of someone who is there contributing on a regular basis. The ease in which a blog can get started and have other people's content posted on it through "feeds" lends itself to abuse through software automation which may help other software tools (like search engines) find it more easily. That kind of blog doesn't really provide much value to actual people, and so doesn't really become part of the conversation.

I see those kind of blogs as the idiot sales guy in the plaid suit who nobody invited to the party. He's standing there shouting in the corner, but you do your best to ignore him.

Beyond Blogs and Forums

So beyond forums and blogs, another piece of the online social network is bookmarks. Believe it or not, other people are actually interested in what you find, well… interesting. The premise is that real people will bookmark the stuff they like, and other poeple may also find those sites useful. By placing these bookmarks into an online service like del.icio.us you give other people insight into what you find valuable on the internet and can find people with shared interests.

Relating this all back to [tag-tec]network marketing online[/tag-tec], you can build up your social network by participating in these community building venues. But just as in the offline world, you need to present yourself as a real, multi-dimensional person. Don't try to sell every person who comes by on your business or product. Just be yourself and share yourself and your knowledge with others.

The people who are right for your business will find you and you might even like working together!