It’s never particularly easy to find the right balance between networking and keeping your competition at a safe distance and when your business is exclusively online. This is perhaps more of a concern than for offline businesses.
If your site is based on the Internet only, it’s much easier for your competition to keep an eye on what you’re doing and the temptation is always to feel ever so slightly protective as a result of this.
But actually, embracing your competition and networking within your niche can have huge benefits for your online business. Whether you’re an e-commerce site, affiliate site, lead generation business or something entirely different, networking can establish your presence within that niche area and keep you up to date with what’s going on.
As an example, I’ll discuss affiliate sites. There are a number of blog networks and forums on which affiliate site owners and webmasters discuss everything from business, changes to the service of major affiliate providers, to the weather!!
Taking part in these forums doesn’t mean you have to present your competition with a full and detailed analysis of your marketing strategy and long term plans, but many do share insights. It’s almost like a brainstorming network, to some extent.
Of course, if someone writes about a strategy you find interesting and have never previously thought about yourself, you will want to try it. The same will work the other way round. Yes, it means you may have to share a little bit of your experience but the wealth of knowledge and insight you can obtain in exchange can be of huge benefit.
Networking within your niche is also a sure fire way to ensure that you stay up to date with the latest news. Take, for example, the many affiliate conferences that take place each year. How will you find out about those? The organisers target the major networks as a quick way of getting out the information about events that could be particularly valuable to you.
In much the same way that offline networking can produce valuable contacts, so too can online networking. By becoming a part of the community around blogs and forums in your niche, you will inevitably make contacts – but often only if you’re contributing with something worthwhile!
The silent observers are less likely to be approached by potential consumers or those seeking business opportunities than those whose contributions and worthwhile and valuable. In having something productive to say, you have an opportunity in many ways to prove yourself as something of an authority in your niche – something that will again inevitably produce very useful contacts.
Networking online is much easier than networking offline. There are literally millions of people virtually at your fingertips and overlooking the opportunities that such networking brings could be very costly to your web based businesses.
This is a guest post by Stacey Cavanagh of Tecmark: SEO Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Personally I think it’s easier to network online and make it work because if you can gain trust with readers online you’ve done a hell of a job.
Your friends and family already know you and probably aren’t too concerned with what you’re doing online. I’d much rather network online myself.
Eric´s last blog ..The Way I Blog With Ease