Knowing where to effectively market will take a little research. Knowing your target market will have a big benefit as you find places that you can use your networking skills, but may also bring you some sales. Social sites, forums, and blogs are great ways to get free publicity and put your expertise to work.

We’ve talked on how networking is all about talking with other people and not being pushy. Then you should be sharing ideas and not just selling your products and services. Now consider the expertise you can bring to conversations and really make people want to read your blogs and message board posts, therefore signing up for your newsletters to get more info.

Everyone has heard of spam. There are many that do not know what spam can encompass. Spam is unsolicited ads, no matter where those ads are posted or to whom. Your friends and family don’t deserve spam in their inbox. Message boards do not deserve unsolicited ads in inappropriate forums, and your newsletter lists are definitely a bad place to post ad after ad with no content. You may not even understand that you are hurting your business and wasting your time with bad networking techniques that are actually spam.

Having been online for many years now I’ve witnessed a serious decline in networking. I have a feeling it is because the majority of the online community no longer markets offline as well. This has led to less one-on-one personal contact and the feeling that they must hit as many people each day as possible with their site info. I’m here to explain how networking truly works.

Webster’s Dictionary defines networking as: the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions; specifically : the cultivation of productive relationships for employment or business. If you notice, nothing in this definition says that you will use communities for nothing more than links to your site.