Get involved in the online community

Just as you must get involved in your local community for your local business to be successful, success online depends on your degree of involvement in the online community. Make the commitment to get involved personally in cyberspace. Find areas that match your personal interests. Whether you're a fan of Jimmy Buffett, soap operas, bicycle racing, backgammon, roller coasters, the space shuttle, or are interested in political discussions about the Middle East, there's a large group of people on the Internet who share your interests. Take a look at all the newsgroups and mailing lists that are available. There are surely several that would interest you, where you can make a meaningful contribution to the ongoing dialogue.

Offer useful contributions and information completely unrelated to your business. Simply get out there and get to know people. Become involved in discussions. You'll be surprised at what you will learn and the people you will meet.

Treat the Internet like a cocktail party when it comes to networking. You wouldn't go to a cocktail party and start handing out flyers for your business, would you? Now, if you were engaged in conversation with someone and they happened to ask you what you do, you would certainly give them a short summary, and if they express any more interest you'd probably arrange a meeting with them to tell them more. But if you go in to the party and just start handing out flyers -- well, that's just not done. Neither is it done online. People don't go online to get hit on. They go there to interact with other people in a meaningful way. To learn new things. To meet other people. To be exposed to ideas and concepts. It is a powerful medium, and it is also a human medium that has rules of etiquette similar to any other place where people interact with each other.

Get involved in the online community

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