Things are happening so fast anymore it's difficult to keep up with. Six months ago the top internet marketers were saying there was no money to be made from spending time on social networks.

Now people are paying upwards of $1,500 for courses on how to market in social networks. What a difference a few months makes, eh?

The good news for network marketers is that the online world is starting to look a lot like the offline world when you start thinking about how we are able to build relationships, make friends, and find new business partners. Marketing in the online social space is a lot like working in the offline world. You build your reputation and people get to know you. If you are too blantant that you are trying sell people stuff, then you will turn off just about anyone you come in contact with. Just like it happens in the offline world.

If you have been following an mlm training system, it likely does not go into a lot of detail on how to navigate these networks. It's not because those marketing systems are bad, it's just that it takes time for the trainers to learn it, and then translate it into something they can teach. And I can tell you from experience there are a lot of people doing it wrong.

What is "wrong"?

It's the kind of thing I mentioned above. There are people I know in these online spaces who are network marketers, and all they talk about is their business and how to make money. Now I'm pretty sure there's more to thier lives than that (at least I hope so), but you wouldn't know it from how they portray themselves. There is something to be gained from being a friend of other marketers, but just being continuously in promotion mode is a turnoff for me and probably for their prospects.

I'm actually more interested in what kind of person they are. What do they like to do when they're not working on their business. Over time I can get a more complete picture of who they are, and maybe I will want to do business with them.

Sounds a lot like how you would approach this in an offline setting, doesn't it?

So if you're going to play in the social marketing space, don't poison the well for yourself because there really are people out there using these networks and they will remember you - it's up to you whether that's a good memory or a bad one.

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