Social and Professional Networks for Marketers

Introduction

Networking is very important in every profession, but essential in internet marketing. Networking is not the same as prospecting, because unlike sales prospecting is the goal of networking not necessarily to get a new customer. It is about getting contacts and contacts can be good for all kinds of things, including prospecting, but that is only one possibility.

Marketing is about promoting something or someone and having a contact in the right place at the right time can make the difference between in or out. There are also business related needs that do not have to do with promotion or sales, but day to day administrative work.

Contacts can help you there as well, directly or with tips and suggestions. Networking should never be too formal nor too informal. While you are networking, you should not selling or promoting (at least not blatant). You network to get to know each other and to meet new PEOPLE. Networking is socializing, hence social networks (socializing + networking) are the ideal place to network, socialize and get to know people.

Here is a list of important social and professional networking sites for marketers.

Social Networks for Affiliate and Internet Marketers

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Logo	Description
	Ad-Tech Connect - Networking site for Ad-Tech attendees to maximize networking opportunities
	Affiliate Summit Social Network - Connect with fellow marketers prior and after attending the tradeshow.
	Affiliate Dinner - dinners organized by Shaaf Consulting and their merchants for affiliate marketers.
	BumpZee.com - platform that allows the creation of communities and their members to add their blog feeds to it. Entries can be rated and comments be made. Along the way can you make new friends and learn about other people that share the same interests than you are. BumpZee is currently being used for the most part by the affiliate marketing and search marketing communities, but it is growing.
	Sphinn.com - Digg/MyBlogLog like social networking site based on the Pligg engine created by Third Door Media, Inc. (SearchEngineLand.com, SMX, SearchMarketingNow)
	MyBlogLog.com - social community platform that allows bloggers to connect with each other, blog stats (landing page, outbound links clicked) and widget for your blog that shows the latest readers of your blog, if they have a MyBlogLog account as well.
	BlogCatalog.com - Blog Catalog is another social blog directory on the internet.
	Aggreg8.net by Microsoft - a social networking and collaboration space for the IT community
	CollectiveX - social networking site for organized groups of all types and sizes
	The v7 Network at v7n.com web development community (forums, tools, blogs) - John Scott

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Business Networking and Online Reputation

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The social networks listed here are geared towards business networking. They usually come without the childish gimmicks like poking, flirt-apps and the ability to make your own profile page disfunctional and a pain for the ears and/or eyes of people who accidently stumble across your "customized" profile page.

Logo	Description
	LinkedIn.com Business Network - Connect with your business partners (LinkedIn Directory)
	Xing.com (OpenBC) - Open Business Club - Free networking platorm for people that do business online.
	RepVine - Online reference and reputation management. Put your reputation online
	ZoomInfo.com The search engine for discovering people, companies, and relationships

The traditional networking place of the Web 1.0 are online forums. Online forums still exist, including forums for affiliate/internet marketers or about search engine marketing and optimization.

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