Effective Networking: 7 Ways to Connect With People in Your Niche

I do most of these, but I find that it is really difficult to stay up to date in a lot of social networks, so it is a good idea to just stay current in a small handful that are most relevant to your niche. No use in spreading yourself out too thin, then you lose all the benefits.

I would also say email bloggers in your niche. It’s another great way to get your name out there and get known.

Read, and Comment on Blogs - This is the most favored, and feel is more direct. Yes, it might not rack in as much exposure as, say, being part of a social media group or large community, i.e facebook, but interacting directly with the blogger’s post is priceless, and the impression is more enduring.

@Genesis, Yes I find that too but to be honest there aren’t that many relevant to my niches. But I think in the beginning its a good idea to at least try out as many as possible to get a feel for them and then decide on a handful of good ones.

@Adam, Hmm that’s one approach that I have not tried yet. It feels somewhat spammy to just email somebody to say hello. I find it difficult to come up with stuff to say in a random email like that. If I was about to publish something *really good* on my site, then I might email some bloggers about it.

@DomTan, Yes for the Internet Marketing niche its something I spend a LOT of time on, easily an hour a day and I still can’t keep up. But then it’s a big niche.

Caroline, That’s quite a daunting task. How do you manage it all? It must be easier now that you are doing it full time.

What if we only have a few hours a day (max) for our project and it might be tricky to spend a good amount of time on one of the above mentioned let alone all of them everyday..

How do you keep track of where you are with what, are you using something like Google Notebook? Especially in the early stages of this process when you are doing the searching for the sites and networks, once you have a list and them all bookmarked and set up, it would be a lot easier to do the maintenance. It’s the tackling of the initial stages that I find daunting - I feel like a goldfish who has been thrown in the sea… I miss the comfort of my goldfish bowl.. Eventually I hope the sea will feel as comfortable :)

Emma

@Emma, You can’t do it all and keep doing it all forever. Some things can be done fairly quickly for example the blogging communities. In the make money niche there are and endless list of blogs so I probably spend about 5 minutes daily joining other people’s communities.

But if you are just starting out its probably worth spending all of your time just getting a feel for what’s out there and then making your own decisions about what it is worth your time to do.

If you have just left the goldfish bowl I suggest that you start just by swimming out a little further each time you do it. Start with one thing at a time, don’t try to do *everything* at once. I’ve tried and I cant do it all even full time.

I think I like participating in forums best. There is SO MUCH to read and learn in forums than in blog.

some of my fav forums: Digital Point, WarriorForum, Sitepoint, and Affiliate Seeking.

Read them if you want to make money online! Its just that too many blogs nowadays blog about blogging, so I tend to read less blogs.

Thanks for the fantastic summary, and there is no doubt it is all pretty overwhelming. But like eating the proverbial elephant, if it is taken one bite at a time it can be done.

The way I manage it is I have written a schedule of all the thinks I need (and want) to do each day to further my online networking. At least having it all written down, I don’t feel like I am drowning!

I also think it is important to be consistent with everything - that way people get to really know you. I have been networking offline for two and a half years now and it is rare to go to an event where I don’t already know people. I suspect it will probably take about that amount of time to get known online just as well.

Sorry (embarrassed smiley here)…what I meant was things I need to do each day, not thinks.

Perhaps another little point to remember is to check your spelling before you comment?

@Warrior, You know that’s interesting. I have actually not personally participated in forums for this niche as I remember from my days of reading games forums how much noise there was. But now I spend an hour or two a day reading an endless amount of blogs and as I blogged about recently, there’s a lot of noise there too. Maybe I should cut down on the blogs and try a forum!

@Nancy, well as i said to Emma, you don’t have to do it all. I don’t do all of these things myself. And I agree consistency is key. If you show up willy nilly people wont be able to get to know you properly.

A very well reasearch and thorough post, I was struggling to come up with ways to find other people in my niche, I will be investigating a number of these techniques.

Thanks

Well said! I have same type of thinking from my experience of 8 years till now in this business!

I have a niche that I have been part of for 9 years - that of professional mobile DJ.

I did this for a living for 30 years and have an email list in the 1000s this is my niche.

I also own my small SEO business which i have been running since 97 so I reckon I should stick to what I know and mix the two up :)

Very nice post!

I experimented with Twitter a few months ago, but I didn’t like it. I mostly stopped because it took forever to load for some reason. I would spend a whole minute posting a new twitter because of the load time.
I may pick it back up again!
I’ll take a look at that Twitter post series…

In my experiance, the best way to get visitors is through commenting on other blogs. And not only commenting, but commenting regularly and responding to comments. Granted, it’s hard to do on some blogs (like ProBlogger) - but others are quite managable.
One of my favorite blogs, RandomJabber.com, is a small blog - thus I follow the comments. Through RandomJabber, I have recieved twice as many visits as any other blog - almost solely through comments. I have been featured there a few times because of my participation - but most of it comes through the comments.

But that’s just my experiance.

@Brian, Yes commenting on other blogs has been good for me. I find it easy to post at ProBlogger because I think the US is asleep when he posts. Where as, I can’t get anywhere with a popular blog such as John Chow because by the time I see the post, it’s already got 50 comments.

Small blogs can work very well because you can post a comment some hours later and still be not too far down the list.

Also I think being able to earn money from your profile as well as netwroking with old friends makes a social site great. I do both by using a new facebook application called SeatBOT. I put the details of the application below in my sources.

I try to spend 1 hour a day now on Morachat (I get paid too! Well only about 10c a day…). I write articles on Associated Content so I try to participate a bit too in the forum and leave comments on other members’ articles that are related to my own articles. I try to comment on blogs (Yours is my no.1!) and I need to learn how to use social networking properly. I have 2 young kids so it’s difficult to find time but I sometimes use Fuel My Blog because I like this directory.
I think you should not do everything at the same time (unless you are a superhuman), but try and stick to a few you are comfortable with.

It would be interesting to see what forums you use and recommend and what are the ethics of using forums. For instance, should you leave your URL in your answer?

@Nathan, actually for this niche I do not participate in forums simply due to lack of time. However if I did my first stop would be the Warrior Forum and if that was not enough for me then I would also visit Digital Point forums and Sitepoint. Google those three.

As for ethics, you have to be SO SO careful with forums. Personally I would never drop a link and I would only put a link in my signature if it was allowed. If it wasn’t then I probably wouldn’t bother with that forum.

Excellent post !

Though I was already doing some of these, I got info about a bunch of ways I did not pay much attention to.

Thanks You

Really helpful content…thank you!

1. Do you have any thoughts on the importance (or not) of branding w/r/t social media profiles. Does it influence one’s contribution or perceived value-add?

Real names, pseudo names, silly, serious, etc.? Does it matter?

2. In terms of “dropping a link”..why do blog post comments include a “website” field? What’s its purpose? Is this a form of
“dropping a link”?

Thanks!

@Liz, yes I do think branding is important - I promote my brand (me) on Facebook, Twitter, MyBlogLog, Sphinn and some others. People start to get the feeling that they see you ‘everywhere’ and that helps with the branding.

The website field of a comment will link to the name you provide. Dropping a link is where you insert an additional link into the body of a comment. I don’t mind when people drop links to pertinent articles that are relevant to the conversation. What I find annoying is when people use a signature linking to the website they are already linking to in their name - I delete those in comments left on this blog.