Dave Courvoisier's Blog

DAVE: Blogging is where I started…so yes, I’m big on that.  More than any of the other network marketing sites, this is the fullest measure of YOU…mostly because you OWN the site, and it’s YOURS to do with what you will.  Over time, prospective clients (even friends and peers) can be reassured by coming to know the real you on your blogsite. Hopefully, that gains you trust and believability as a person fostering business relationships.

This is one nut I have not fully cracked yet.  I think it has huge potential.  Right now, I’m amassing legions of connections without regard to whether I know them.  This flies in the face of LinkedIn rules, but as a LION (Linked-In Open-Networker), I belong to TopLinked.com and it nets me hundreds of contacts/week.  LinkedIn allows it.  I’ve also curried some nice recommendations, and write recommendations for others.  I’ve tweaked my profile to be consistent with my brand (as I do across all social networks), and I continue to watch and learn.  I am extremely wary of “social network gurus” who want to parlay my eagerness to monetize applications like LinkedIn and Twitter.  I think most of them are scam-ish.  Meaning, they’re not illegal, but they’re of questionable value to me.  It’s just how SOME people have found a way to make it work for them.  If you read the disclaimers associated with these offers, you’ll see a lot of back-treading.  With LinkedIn, you can conduct surveys and send out mass mailings or questions that are sort-of veiled marketing messages.  What I see as the big experiment is to find a way to market, without it sounding like marketing.  So far the way to do that, as defined by a number of people who seem to know what they’re talking about, is (as I said before)…be helpful, offer to be vulnerable in giving readers a window into your true self, and give something of value (usually information) for free.