How and why to use BetterNetworker

Over the last few months – it seems to me – BetterNetworker (BN) has been growing faster than all through the last year. This article is for you whether or not you are new to BN.

If you are new, you would like to know 3 key things:

1. BN is a forum for thought exchange, mutual upliftment, sharing success and raising questions. It comprises people from the network building, network marketing, mlm and cash gifting communities, and keen observers of the same.

   Owing to this composition, many newbies think it their moral responsibility to share their “fantastic” opportunity will all present. Seems obvious… after all everyone here is open minded, ambitious and looking for more. Wrong! Everyone here is looking for meaningful relationships, stimulus and growth ideas using their existing opportunities. If any new opportunity comes up, someone responsible would post it in the forums without a link. Interested people would “ask” the poster for the link. This is how any responsible, self respecting community works.

   If you comprehend better by analogy, think of the Red Cross. They build value by building their blood banks and stuff. Hospitals and patients come to them automatically. Nobody gets into the ‘my blood is better than yours’ game. Make sense?

2. Your profile and your contributions play an important role in your leverage with the community. What does this mean? It means you might want to look at your photo/s, bio-d, video/s, article/s, forum posts and blog/s with a degree of professionalism. Why? These are your envoys that get into the community and attract members over to you. If you’re sharp, you’ll have sharp envoys… many of them… and marching out regularly! And they will bring back the right people to connect with you.

3. Set up your profile to enable people to make ‘pre-approved’ friendships with you. This is a suggestion so you develop a good connection base. Generally you will not find undesirable people hopping by. You can of course make changes to your connections anytime, but the important thing is to have some in the first place!

   Also set up your forum signature to carry a message about what you do. This is explained in detail in the ‘Help’ section and this is the only bit you need to promote yourself / your business / offer. You can keep changing your signature to suit your marketing priorities.

That said, it can be assumed you would roll into the community, share your valuable insights and start some relationship building. What can you expect that to lead to?

1. The way BN is designed, it is very well connected to search engines. This means, every post of yours can be an exercise in putting up keywords that are beneficial to your business. Let’s take an example… say you’re into Leadership Development. Now every time you make a post or an article about some aspect of Leadership Development (say Private Leadership Training Summit in Arkansas) it will rank quite high in the google search. So a total stranger searching for “leadership training Arkansas” would have your post pop up before him in google.

   So what? So three things. One, the stranger would perceive you as an authority who writes in a respectable networking forum. Two, the stranger would contact you because you have a desirable, professional profile (or forum signature). And three, you would build business with posture.

   Let me give you an example. Google up ‘Perry Marshall's latest Guide to Adwords’ Where do you see the betternetworker link? (I see it as # 7). Click on it. Presto!

2. By additionally becoming a member of ABN (the Association of Better Networkers; memberships will reopen shortly) you would enjoy the facility of ‘Reviews by Members’. This is a great place to give and receive testimonials. Testimonials are the proven means for generating confidence. People looking at your profile will see third-party praise and thou shalt rise in their eyes!

3. Third, BN offers backlinks to your blog. Which means, if you have forum posts with your blog mentioned, everytime you post, your blog will be pinged at google. It just means that over time, google will see your blog as an authority… since you have many links coming in to it.

4. And finally, as an active, valuable participant in the community you will set the platform for joint ventures and cooperative business with other successful entrepreneurs. This is the secret to making it big. It’s leverage in a true sense.

   So rather than think small and short-term, think big and long-term. BN rewards you for doing that. And the mindset you develop by doing so, rewards you as a networker.

Networking is a big and long-term activity… with small, daily, focused rituals that make it work. Like little rivers that make the ocean. How fertile would you like your river-banks to be?

 - By Sandeep Nath, author of the handbook “What Nobody Tells You About Network Marketing” and owner of The Coaching Network (for network marketers) Worldwide http://TCNWorldwide.info