Social Networking - What is Your Purpose? By Irma White

Have you ever joined a social networking site and immediately noticed no one desired what you offered? After all, you thought a social networking site was a great place to find people - right? Right. It is a way to find people and a place to socialize. Thus, building quality relationships is crucial to your success.

Here a a few tips that will enhance your social networking experience.

Things to do when customizing your profile:

1. When building your profile, post your picture. It makes your site more personable and inviting. People relate to you better and people do business with those they know, like & trust.

2. Although you want to share a little about yourself, keep your profile simple (uncluttered) and short. If it's too cluttered or too long most people won't stay long enough to find the important info.

3. When customizing you profile, offer some type of free service that will benefit them. In other words, your site should not be just about advertising your product. If people don't know you, it's not likely they will buy from you just because they visited your profile. In what ever way you can, be of assistance to your visitor. Provide them something of quality that they will find use.

Things to do to build relationships:

1. If you're new to a community or network, people can easily find you. However, after you've been a member a while, you need to do something to get traffic. You do this by making comments on other people's sites, whether it's someone new to the community or new to a network you've joined. Find a common interest and add your comment or sign their guestbook based upon that. Don't post a generic comment, show genuine interest.

This will do two things:
1) bring them to your profile and
2) bring their visitors to your profile. This is cross-trafficking.

In addition, if you've made friends and know their birthdays, be sure to extend birthday greetings. They would surely appreciate you for that.

But remember, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, leave an advertisment on someone's guestbook. That is netiquette 101. Your sig file is not the place for that. Use your sig file in emails or on blog/forum posts. You can, however, link to someone or something of interest or humorous (just remember to be professional).

People hate spam. Your objective at the social sites is to build relationships. If you join social networking sites for advertisement purposes only, you have little chance of succeeding. But, when you build those quality relationships, your business will grow.

You will notice social networking is "work" but well worth it. You will have to be an active user of the site. To be active, join a few networks and participate in a few of the forums. Just be careful not to let it consume all your time. Devote a couple hours per day to this activity and you will be well on your way to building your empire.

These are the same techniques I am successfully using to build my business. They can do the same for you.

Happy Social Networking and Be empowered to prosper!

Irma White
A Mentor with a Servant's Heart

If this information was helpful, click here for more free network marketing training, strategies, tips and resources to help you reach your business goals.

Developing Your Critical Thinking Skills

I received another chain e-mail today, you know the kind...the ones that distort the facts for their own political or racial agenda and tell you to pass it on. I use to forward these on to my family and friends and have been embarrassed when I learned the information was false. Now, since I have learned to be a critical thinker I check out the facts which I often find to be misrepresented.

Next time you get an email that says you should "pass on to everyone you know" no matter how good the cause sounds check it out. Think FIRST, before you hit Send. Trust me: that's not too difficult.

Developing sound critical thinking skills will not only save you from embarrassment in passing on misleading e-mails but it is also crucial for your success as a professional network marketer. Critical thinking involves skillful judgment as to truth and merit and is a life-time endeavor.

Most network marketers who develop sound critical thinking skills save themselves years of failure and frustration. But some never take the time to develop these skills and continue to embarrass themselves by promoting MLM businesses that will never bring profit to their independent distributors.

Are you a critical thinker? Or do you jump into and promote those MLM business opportunities that promise you quick and easy money just to be embarrassed when they don't deliver on their promises?

If you are tired and frustrated with the "get rich quick" MLM lies that are being fed to you then download Michael Dlouhy's free e-book Success in 10 Steps. Everybody is talking about how it has changed the way they think and promote their business.

Be the Critical Thinker You Were Created to Be!

Lidie Gray
A Mentor With a Servant's Heart
lidiegray@gmail.com