CT Biz Blogs

I was checking out cartoonist Mark Anderson’s blog this morning (that’s his stuff on the left sidebar), and I loved his entry on the type of email he gets. One person’s email consisted entirely of:

Do you have an affiliate program? How many orders do you fill each month? What is the most popular subject area? What trends or cycles present themselves through the year? How large is your in-house staff?

That’s right, no greeting, no introduction, nothing. Check out his blog for his answer and more email humor.

This type of email is so typical and so pathetic.

I’ve been paying attention to networking lately, on-line and off. I went to a function where several people apparently thought networking meant pushing their business cards on as many people as possible, saying as little as possible, and “hitting” as many people as possible.

On the other hand, the Greater Meriden Chamber of Commerce and the Central CT Women’s Forum have great networking events. The people there tend to be interested in meeting people and actually talking with them. They have actual conversations that aren’t all “me, me, me.”

Blog comments are a good way to network, too. But they have to be used correctly, in much the same way as offline networking events.

What I mean is, you need to contribute to the conversation. If you don’t, you’re only one step above spam.

I get a lot of comments that aren’t technically spam, but instead are links — just bare links to a site, or with some text indicating what the links are. But no conversation.

That’s not a comment, that’s an ad. I don’t have ads on this site. Comments like that don’t last too long.

I don’t mind links in comments at all; what I don’t want is just a link. If you’ve got a blog that might be of interest to my readers, explain why. Say something about the post that prompted your comment, to indicate that you read more than the title, if nothing else.

There’s a lot of information on the Internet, and a lot of good information. But if you want people to pay attention to your link, you need to show them why it’s worth their time.

Notice I said show them, not tell them. Telling them would be just a longer ad. Showing them means demonstrating, through your comments on topics, that you’re someone who has something to say that’s worth their attention.

It doesn’t mean every comment needs to be a dazzlingly brilliant display of deep insight. Amusing chit-chat is fine, as is just a sentence or two about your feelings on the subject of the post.

That’s OK; that’s conversation. And that’s what I’m talking about.