Leveraging the power of the online business community

Leveraging the online business community

Posted on Saturday, December 5, 2009 by Fred

When running your own business you constantly have all sorts of questions. Many of them… you don’t have the answer for. You can either ring some you know that might be able to point you in the right direction, you can do hours of research trying to find the answer or hiring the right professional… or you can simply use the right online tools, throw a good question there and expect dozens of qualified business professionals around the world answer it for you

Twitter has helped us many times but people only have 140 characters.
LinkedIn Question & Answers is a very good choice. I know some people might be aware of it, but every time I ask if they use it at all (or use it properly)… they really don’t.
With the current economic climate these are paths that will make you connect and network with more business professionals and what’s best, get the best advise for free!
We recently needed help selecting the right technology for online meeting and webinars…

I’m amazed at the level of answers. Even someone from the official Microsoft Outreach team contacted me! Click on the image above to benefit from all the answers.

My partner was looking for the right online project management tool…

We received fantastic feedback that helped us made a decision. Have a look at the answers yourself by clicking on the image above.

We also ANSWER loads of questions on LinkedIn. This is a huge benefit. Not only it feels great to help others but when someone votes your answer as “Best” it’s a great way to sweeten your profile and spread your expertise.
One of my answers got featured in a very important online publication in Norway and Sweden back in June. Also, a few weeks ago, a publisher in the South of Florida was so happy with my answer that she’s now putting together an e-book about LinkedIn and she’ll feature me there. Her e-books are downloaded by a few thousand people. Not bad. All this happened because I took the time to answer a question…

What do you think about this kind of approaches? If you’re already using LinkedIn Q&A what’s your experience? Go ahead, leave a comment below.

Best,

Fred

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anything from co-browsing YouTube to playing games, adding funny effects to a live video conference, interacting on Facebook together with your contacts or even shopping for things online together with your friends or family members

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Category: Online strategy, Social Networking, Social media, Tips to develop your business.

Tags: , ask questions, business professionals, find answers, leverage online community, linkedin questions and answers, Q&A, Social media

derbhiledromey

That's what I think online communities are good for. Found the Questions and Answers section for my category a bit gimmicky and Americanised though. Online communities also good for expanding contacts if you're working alone.

Channelship

Thanks for your comment Derbhile. It's true that the Q&A might look Americanised but if you sort all questions by "date" you'll have a great chance of being the first to answer questions within your field and get international exposure. Regarding questions, majority of the time, it doesn't really matter that many of the answers come from America as long as you're getting closer to what you want to find out. Q&A is a great "excuse" to start networking with the people that already made contact with you :)