This might seem like a completely obvious post, but sadly, it is not obvious enough. I get emails every day from people who want to do business with me, but have no clue that I’m instantly judging them by their signature (or lack, thereof). A signature is hugely important, especially online. You can’t just hand people your business card through email, so the email signature takes the place of a card.

In order to present yourself as being professional, you must include a signature with your emails, and these signatures must have the following elements:

The Proper Elements of a Business Email Signature

1. Your Name – Pretty obvious, no?
2. Your Professional Title / Position – People need to know where you fall in the scheme of things. Your title or position in a company immediately tells others this.
3. Your Company’s Name – Should be as obvious as including your name.
4. Your Phone Number – If you’re not willing to include a phone number with an email, then who on earth can take you seriously?
5. Your Company’s Website URL – This is a must, especially if you’re corresponding with people working on internet related businesses. The only reason not to have your site’s URL is if you’re hiding something.

Optional Elements

• Your Fax Number – While most professional emails contain a fax number, people can do without it.
• Your Email – The recipient of your emails will always have your email address, but by adding it to your sig, you just make it easier for people to find.
• Your Business Address – While it helps to know where someone’s physical presence is, in the current day and age people aren’t using snail mail as often as they used to. Mailing addresses are great to have, but not 100% necessary.
• Alternate Phone Numbers – Having additional ways to contact you is always a plus.
• Social Media Links – These days it has become almost standard to share links to the big 3 social networks (sorry MySpace, I don’t mean you) – Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

If you’re trying to do business or create business relationships online, you must post your signature in your emails!

How serious will a potential partner take you if you contact their company in hopes of forging a relationship when you don’t include a signature?

Example of An Unprofessional Email Request

A few days ago I got an email inquiry about advertising on BiggerPockets.com. The person who contacted me, asked me for information about the site’s traffic, wanted to know if I’d give them free time to test their ad, and even asked for a discount in my ad prices. I had never heard from this person before, and they hadn’t told me anything about who they were. Worst of all, their signature contained only 2 elements, their name and phone number. In addition, their email address was a generic one from one of the major internet providers. Clearly, this person did not look very professional to me.

Do you think I gave any information to them?

I had no way to identify her and wasn’t about to send privileged information to just anyone. Had she simply included a proper signature, I might have looked at the email completely differently. As a result, I had to waste my time by sending her an email asking her to identify herself. I immediately judged her as being unprofessional; she now has to work much harder to build up my trust. (Somewhat unrelated sidebar: Asking for ad discounts and free ad time to test her potential spots clued me in to the fact that she is not very professional as well. Who does that? If I had worked with her in the past, I’d have had no issue with the request, but asking on first contact is just bad form. Why would someone assume that you would give them a discount if you don’t even know who they are?)

Are there any other email signature elements that you feel are necessary?

I’m a huge fan of MyBlogLog, as it has become a great tool for building blog traffic, but I have one issue with the site that continues to annoy me:

The Problem with MyBlogLog
When you add a friend, the site redirects you back to your own profile. This is extremely annoying! When I find a user that I’d like to befriend, I want to continue surfing their profile after adding them as a friend. Once I’m back in my profile, it is difficult to find these new friends.

My Solutions
I have 2 solutions for this problem:

1. Redirect a user back to the friend’s profile . . . this seems to be the easiest, and most obvious solution.

2. Create a section on our profiles where we can see users we just befriended; there is already an area where you can see people who befriended you. I believe that this is an essential upgrade (by itself or in conjunction with the first suggestion)

How You can Help
If this problem annoys you as well, just let Eric know.

How to Reach Me on MyBlogLog
You can network with me on MyBlogLog. Either add me as a friend (my username is bigp), or join the TimeforBlogging Community!

I had high hopes . . . they have summarily been squashed!

As many of you are aware, I tried to put together a networking event here in Denver for web-entrepreneurs, developers, investors, etc. The event this morning was a complete bomb!

The Networking Event of The uhhhhh Century. Well, Maybe Next Time!

I sat at the location for close to an hour and no one showed up . . . well, at least I was in the company of some other interesting people (I did some networking, nonetheless!). I guess that’s the way things go sometimes! I think it may show the difference between Denver and Boulder as far as tech is concerned. When I attended a similar event in Boulder, which was announced in a similar fashion to this one, there were over 20+ people who attended. Oh well . . .

We’ll try this one more time – I’m going to plan on it being at a bar. This way, if I’m stuck by myself, I’ll at least have a beer to keep me company. Stay tuned!

Sometimes people ask me why their blog isn’t growing as fast as they’d like it to, and I usually ask what they are doing to build an audience. Most of the time, the answer I get is “I’m writing good posts” and “I try to do it regularly.” While this is important, I’ll venture to say that it is only a small fraction of what is necessary to build traffic to your site. What is the other 50%?

50% of Blogging Success is Connecting with Others

Most of the bloggers out there who are frustrated with their blog’s traffic growth are simply not doing enough to connect with other bloggers outside their sites. That’s why I feel that tools like MyBlogLog are so important. In this day and age, people want nothing more than to connect with others. This explains the growth torrent of blogs, forums, and other social websites.

What Do You Need to Do to Connect?

• You have to get out and see what others are doing, talking about, writing about, etc.
• You have to visit other sites and comment on their posts and get involved in the discussion.
• You have to email other people in your space and get to know them, and more importantly, let them get to know you.
• You have to network outside the virtual world..
• You have to be original and show people that you aren’t just another imitator trying to get your piece of the pie.
• You have to write quality posts about interesting or helpful subjects and you have to show people why it is important to them.
• You have to convey a passion in your writing.
• You have to be opinionated.
• You have to reveal at least a small part of yourself.
• You have to shape the debate in your area of content.

I can go on and on, but I’m getting a bit distracted watching the NBA Playoffs . . . I suppose the main point I’m trying to get across is this:

If you hope to build a thriving blog community (all the top blogs are primarily communities – just look at the amount of comments they get), then make sure you’re spending a good chunk of your time connecting as well as writing!

Update 2/24/11: Yahoo has announced that it will discontinue the MyBlogLog service on May 24, 2011.

I wrote about using MyBlogLog a few weeks ago (networking with social media sites) for networking purposes. I now want to tell you exactly how to build massive traffic using the MyBlogLog community.

MyBlogLog is an extremely important tool for getting a blog off the ground and for building exposure to your site. Many people don’t realize how powerful it really is! This post will help you get a jump start in building traffic to your blog / website, and will also help you find new, interesting sites you never knew about before.

How to Set Up MyBlogLog on Your Blog or Website

1. Create an account with MyBlogLog. This hould take less than a minute. All you’ll need is to pick out your username, email, password, and the URL of your blog. Once you’ve created an account, be sure to upload an image of yourself as your avatar. Photos are just more personal and make things a bit more inviting.
   
   

2. To bring more interest to your profile, or simply to help users get to know a bit about you, be sure to fill out some personal information in your profile. Again, it really just helps people to connect with you.
3. You will then want to claim your blog or website. To do this, you’ll need to place a snippet of code that MBL provides you within your blog’s template. Now, when you look at your profile page, you’ll see your website.
   
   

   Both you and your website now have “communities.” Personally, you have the ability to add friends and chat with them. People must join your website’s community, but they can also chat with you through the site’s community.

4. The last major technical step in getting going is installing the MyBlogLog Widget on your blog or website. If you look in your personal profile, you’ll see a link underneath your website’s community “Get Widgets.” The one you are concerned with is the “Recent Readers” widget. This allows you and your other readers to see who has been on your site recently. Layout the widget to your liking and add it to your blog’s sidebar.

Congratulations! You’re Ready.
Here’s where the traffic building begins!

8 Steps To Successfully Building Blog Traffic Using MyBlogLog

1. Make sure you are logged into MyBlogLog. This seems obvious, but if you’re not signed in, then people on the site can’t see you when you’re surfing around.
2. Surf your favorite blogs! Start visiting the sites you’d normally visit and see if they have MyBlogLog widget installed. If they do, click on the View Reader Community link at the bottom. This will bring you to their website’s community.
3. Join the communty and also add the user as a friend/contact. This shows the user in both their personal profile and their website’s community profile that you are interested. It also gives you more exposure so others can find you more easily.
   

   (Note: When you add a user as a friend, you are sent back to your profile, not that user’s. I think this is a glaring problem with the site, as I then have to go back to the blog – to the community – to the user to find their profile again. I hope Eric and others at MBL consider changing this. It will just make things that much easier for users)

4. This is one of the most important steps: Leave a comment on either their personal profile or their website’s community profile. Make sure it is not simply “Nice site” or “Great Blog.” Be sure to leave a relevant comment so the user can tell that you’ve actually visited their site.

   As a result of your comment, the odds are that the user will go and visit your profile (by clicking on your avatar). They will then see your blog / websites and if they have any curiousity in the topic, will check them out. You’ve just exposed your site to another new person!

5. Wash, Rinse, Repeat! After a while, you’ll have targeted all the sites that you are a fan of. Don’t fret, you have much more work ahead!
6. Now that you’ve gone and let your favorite sites know about your interest, it is time to start finding new sites. There are a many ways to do this:
   

   How to find New Websites of Interest

   a) Visit your favorite site’s community pages and look at who else is commenting. Visit their site / blog and return to step 2.
   b) Visit your favorite site’s community pages and look at who else is a member. Visit their site / blog and return to step 2.
   c) Return to your personal profile page and see who “Viewed this Page Recently.” Visit their site / blog and return to step 2.
   d) Go to the “My Admirers” section of your profile. Visit their site / blog and return to step 2.
   e) See who is leaving you comments on your personal community profile or your site’s community. Visit their site / blog and return to step 2.
   f) Visit the profiles of other users you’ve found and see what communities they are a part of. Odds are they will likely be related to their interests. You now have a slew of other communities and sites to visit.

7. Watch the traffic begin! You’ll start to notice traffic slowly start to come from MyBlogLog. Keep people interested by continung to write quality posts.
8. Set aside some time every day to expand your MyBlogLog contacts, visit new sites, comment, and get yourself out there. Remember, every time you visit another site with the MBL Recent Readers widget, you have another opportunity for exposure for yourself. The more you’re seen around, the more likely people will want to connect with you.

Don’t forget that in addition to using MyBlogLog for traffic that there are other important methods. Commenting on other, related blogs with thoughtful messages is hugely important. This should also become a part of your daily routine.

In case you’d like to start somewhere, you can do so with me!
My Personal Profile: BigP (my username)
This Blog’s Profile: TimeForBlogging

Join up and get involved in MyBlogLog today to build your blog’s traffic!

Whoops . . . posted that one a bit prematurely . . . no it’s not a problem I have regularly!

The Creation of a Denver Networking Group

I’ve talked on this blog about why you should get out of the office and network and I’ve decided to start up my own local group here in Denver. This group, will be called (for now) the Denver Meeting of Minds Networking group, and will serve as a means for local Denverites (cool word, huh!) to get together, network, chat, pass along ideas, and expand our horizons as a group.

If you’re an internet entrepreneur, programmer, web-developer, investor, or anyone else involved in a tech startup and you live in the Denver Metro area, please stop by and get involved. The official group page can be found here on the blog at: http://www.timeforblogging.com/meeting-of-minds-denver-networking-group/

Upcoming Event Details
When: Tuesday, May 1, 2007, 8:00 AM
Where: CapuVino – 728 S. University Blvd, Denver, Colorado
How to Register: Visit Registration Page
FREE WIFI? Yes

It should be a great event . . . if anyone shows up other than me (lol to myself). I’ll let everyone know how it goes!

The other day I wrote a post about using social media sites to network. The article covered different kinds of networking that you could conduct with those sites. Today, I’d like to talk about actual real-life networking (not to be confused with Second Life networking).

I have to admit that I’ve been really bad about networking over the past few years; most of my interactions with other people have been online or via the telephone. While this has been effective, it has not been enough. Today, I started a new day in my life – I actually attended a live, in-person networking event. The event was in Boulder and was called the OpenCoffee Club, “A place for people who love startups to hang out and meet.” It was phenominal!

Photo from April 10, 2007 Open Coffee Club in Boulder

NOTE: The OpenCoffee clubs are actually taking place all over the world, not just here in Colorado.

I connected with a ton of good people – entrepreneurs, VCs, and other similar folk. We shared ideas, exchanged information, and passed out cards. While that may sound really boring to some of you, it is thrilling for me! I take that attitude that I can learn something from everyone, and I have done that in many ways already today.

I will absolutely be staying in touch with many of the people I met and it seems like we can all be helpful to one another in some way shape or form. That is the essence of networking!

Lets backtrack for a minute, though. In a previous life, I was involved in the entertainment business and was quite fond of networking, but I learned something while doing it: most people in the entertainment business want to know what you can do for them and don’t even think about what they can do for you. It is a selfish, ego-based system of networking. I found out today, that there are other communities (like the startup, entrepreneur, VC, etc) where people are actually willing to help one another without the immediate expectation of something in return. It is very nice.

How do you go about finding networking groups like the OpenCoffee Club?

Here are a few resources that should be of some help:
Primary Sites to Explore

• Meetup – I mentioned this one before; Look for local groups meeting about your interests, or create a group of your own.
• Upcoming.org – similar to Meetup; people can post events and you can simply meet up!

Secondary Sites to Explore

• Craigslist – people frequently post networking meetings on the events section (Community)
• MySpace – see craigslist above

I hope my experiences can, if anything, help to motivate someone else who might think that these things are just a waste of time.

Just get off the computer and network!

Technology can be a blessing and a curse. In terms of networking, it is absolutely a blessing! Over the past few years I have connected with so many people from my past and I owe most of that to social sites I’ve participated in on the ‘net. I thought it migh be nice to share some of these and how they can be used for networking. Note that this list is not comprehensive – it just covers many of the more popular (or useful) sites and how best to use them.

Mainstream Social Sites

Myspace

While teaching high-school, there was nothing more annoying then to see the students trying to sneak on to MySpace to talk to their friends. While the site is deeply flawed (we all know about the drama), it has been a great networking tool. Many people use it for marketing, but if you ‘re not looking to SPAM the universe and simply want to reconnect with people from your past, it is pretty helpful. I’ve used it to get back in touch with high-school and college friends, and keep my eyes peeled for new people worth reaching out to.

Networking Rating: 4 out of 10 (good for friends & past acquaintences)
My Myspace Profile

Facebook

Facebook is very similar to MySpace, but I have found the interface to be much easier to use and much cleaner looking. It has also been a great resource for finding friends from my past, but in terms of business affiliations, I have not found it to be of much use.

Networking Rating: 6 out of 10 (good for keeping up with former friends / fellow alumni)
My Facebook Profile

Business Networking Sites

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has, in my estimation, the most promise as a business tool. It is focused on business networking, and has tons of features that make keeping in touch and finding new affiliations/partners/employees very easy. It seems that your LinkedIn profile is becoming something like your online calling card. I love searching for people with interesting resumes to see how we’re connected . . . “linkingup” with them becomes really easy, and you know that people who reach you from the site are looking to keep it professional. While there is still room for improvement for the site, it really has become the standard for all other social sites in terms of business networking.

Networking Rating: 9 out of 10 (great for business networking)
My LinkedIn Profile

FastPitch

I just learned about FastPitch Networking from Rich Swier’s Startup Florida just yesterday. I know very little about it and have yet to do more then just play around on the sites main page, but I definitely see some promise in the site. According to Rich, the site is “a premiere destination for business professionals looking to market and network their business.” As I learn more, I’ll be sure to share it!

Networking Rating: ??? (great potential for business networking)

Using Blogging Networking Sites

MyBlogLog

It is hard to find a blog today without the MyBlogLog widget, showing the recent readers of that site. While it is fun to see who has been on your site, you can also use this little widget for networking. The great part about it is that you can then go and find out more about these people by seeing their profile. If you encounter someone interesting, you now have a great in. I’ve used MBL to link up with quite a few people, some of which I continue to stay in touch with. It is really all about creeating opportunities, and this is just another tool to have in the shed!

Networking Rating: 9 out of 10 (great for common interest networking)
My MyBlogLog Profile

Event Based Sites

Meetup.com

Truth be told, I have never attended a Meetup, but I’m starting to see the value of the site. While it seems great for things like making friends or finding people to play with (sports and the like or otherwise if that’s your thing), it is designed for networking. I think most of the value is in attending events for people in your business niche. Want to meet programmers – go to the local programmer meetup . . . looking to link up with entrepreneurs – go to the entrepreneur meetup. I’ve signed up for my first meetup and hope to let you know how it all goes . . .

Networking Rating: ??? (not sure yet)
My Meetup Profile

Using Non-Traditional Social Sites for Networking

Geni.com

I found Geni.com while doing some research on my genealogy. This site is not only a place to build your family tree, but also a hub for family networking. I started my tree less than a month ago and there are now over 1800 members in it. The site allows users to create profiles and like most social sites, to communicate with one another. You never know when that 3rd cousin once removed is going to turn into the lifeline on your next business venture. I’ve already used it to link up with family I’ve never met after moving to Colorado. It is an absolute addiction and worth checking out!

Networking Rating: 10 out of 10 (perfect for family networking)