So, what's the proper way to generate interest in a group without getting banned? How do you attract people back to your website in droves?
<ol>
<li>Join multiple groups targeting your market niche,</li>
<li>Set up a profile in each one with your website url and RSS feeds,</li>
<li>Introduce yourself to the group if it's required,</li>
<li>Read each group for 15 minutes each day for about a week,</li>
<li>Begin to post comments with a signature line that promotes you or your business products,</li>
<li>Be helpful, but don't spam,</li>
<li>Limit your posts so that you don't catch the moderators attention,</li>
<li>Answer questions that might come about from your posts - join in the discussion,</li>
<li>Make yourself the expert,</li>
<li>Create your own group and do steps 1 to 9, promoting your goods on posts too.</li>
</ol>
The strategy to get attention on groups is to contribute thoughtful and insightful comments to the discussion. For that, you have to be involved and participate. You can't just open a post and spam it with some arbitrary message because people will realize you aren't listening at all, you are merely spamming. As soon as someone sees that, they will notify a moderator and you will most likely be banned from the group.
So, the key to successful presence is to listen closely. You want to engage people one-on-one and have them begin to see who you are.
This means you want to be as authentic as possible so that your image as an expert comes through as genuine and not contrived.
Don't be in a rush to get people to your site. It's okay to just join in the conversation and get to know people slowly. Once you do that, you will begin to identify the movers and shakers on the group and you can begin to target your comments more to them. Once you have their attention, the group has your attention.
Above all, be courteous. Groups can get intimate fairly quickly and sometimes it's hard to decipher the motivation behind posts. They may seem to be angry with you, when they just don't know how to turn the cap locks key off when they post. Stay respectful and never post anything you don't want your significant other, your boss, or your colleagues to see.
This simple rule can save your reputation and keep you from being labeled a trouble-maker or troll (the Internet name for someone who likes to bait other people in groups to make them mad).
Once you have the hang of how to deal with numerous people online, it's time to start your own group where you will be the moderator. It may look simple, but remember that your audience comes from everywhere with their own ideas of what's proper and what's not.
So, establish the ground rules early and stick to them.
Be careful to keep out spammers and trouble-makers, unless they are increasing the number of eyeballs that are seeing your products. But, even, the strategy of controversy has a point of diminishing returns.
While people love to have scapegoats and people to burn at the stake, you don't want your products associated too much with that type of energy. When the rubber-necking finally stops you will find you have to start from square one to rebuild your business because everyone will be too disgusted to play with you anymore.
Fortunately, that's not likely to happen, but it is a word of warning. Just stay courteous. Initiate discussions that are interesting. Join in the conversation. Always look for the entry point where you can establish some business connection and exploit it.
Use your signature line to advertise things. Use your profile to advertise your website and RSS feeds. Pretty soon traffic will build from these groups and those people may be in other groups where they start discussing you and your products for you.
That type of interaction on the web is worth a fortune.
Jose Amoros
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