Welcome back to Self Employed Mum. Thanks for visiting!
If you’re running an online business networking online is something you really have to get right. Trouble is, cyberspace can be a confusing place to hang out, particularly for business owners. Here are five things to think about when you start online networking:
Find your forum: Some bizz forums are just that – an online forum solely concerned with business matters – only chit chat on the chit chat thread or you’ll be in trouble with the mods (see below). Other good business forums can be found hidden away as separate threads on more general forums – particularly in the parenting online community. Think about why you want to join a forum – do you want to access information and advice? Find trusty suppliers? Promote your business? Play online games? To varying degrees, you’ll find online business forums provide you with all these opportunities and more…
Pick Your Forum: The key is to join a few and see which one or two you like the best. It’s almost impossible to keep up with more than a handful or contribute meaningfully to more than two or three. You’ll find each forum has it’s own flavour – some you’ll feel at home in, others won’t suit you at all. A good thing to look for is a private section (hidden from the search engines), where members can vent about silly customers or ask for sensitive business advcie. For private forums you usually have to pay for access or be an active member posting regularly.
Choose a Username: If you’ve joined the forum to promote your business, then you’ll want to use either your name IRL or your business/brand name to build up trust in the community. If you intend to never mention your business and only use the forum for sharing advice and opinions, then by all means sign up as Xeniawarriorprincess or whatever – just make sure you stick to your original decision!
Contribute: To get the best out of online networking you need to network (durr). If you only lurk then when the time comes for you to ask a question, you’ll find you don’t get many answers. Start by posting an introduction on the Intro thread (not on the main forum!) and take time to say hello to other newbies. When you’ve got a handle on the way the forum works then start to build relationships and contribute when you have something useful to add to a discussion. Please don’t make your first post “I’m thinking of running my own business, what should I do?” Trust me, it’s not worth the pain…
Respect the Rules: All forums have a degree of moderation – the biggest have whole squads of moderators, usually longstanding forum members who weed out spam, misplaced posts or referee in heated discussions. Offend the mods at your peril. Make sure the first thing you do is READ THE RULES. Here are some common rules you should follow:
Don’t spam forums – don’t use forums to promote your products – really no-one cares – look for the thread where you can post your special offers.
Don’t pm (private message) unless you know the person or they’ve asked for pm’s for privacy reasons. It’s annoying for other forum members to read a thread and then find all the answers have been sent by pm so no-one learns anything.
Use the correct signature – some forums let you format your signature, have a gazillion words as a sign off etc, others don’t and mods get very upset when people break the rules. READ THE RULES!
We’ll be reviewing the bewildering world of online business forums, so if you’ve any recommendations for our “mystery business shopper” please post below 
photo credit: eheçatzin:.
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