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If you blog, has it occurred to you to mix and mingle with like minded people via the blogging forums?

In my early blogging days I joined some blogging communities but they seemed to be more about visiting each other’s blogs and building up the visitor stats but no real connection or interaction took place and the forums in those days were pretty much about ‘look at me, look at my blog’.  Comments were few and far between, as were subscribers.  Increasing counts mean little if nothing else comes with it.

Late last year I was invited to join the Aussie Bloggers Forum and because I knew some of the people involved I joined. Now here was a forum that was more along the lines of what I would like to participate in and I’ve been an active member ever since and recently became a moderator there. The members are great, some of them in the Top 100 Aussie blogger’s list and many others from around the world (ex-pat Aussies) and/or new bloggers. There is always so much to learn from others about various aspects of blogging.

And just this week I decided I really should look to see what other blogging forums are out there.  In my search I came across Bloggeries.  I did look at others but this one has a good number of members and seems quite active so I joined.

If you’re new at blogging, or perhaps you aren’t new but feel ‘alone’ then joining a blogger’s forum is a great way to get to know others, learn to increase your skill as a blogger and even pick up a few new visitors and comments along the way.

Tags: About Blogging, Forums by Kathie Thomas
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The ‘paperless’ office is pretty much a joke these days. Email seems to generate much more of it, but even if we don’t print it off, we still have lots to read and catch up on – if we want to keep up to date with the world. The world has grown ‘smaller’ but with it the amount of stuff we want to know and read has increased considerably. This leads us to being on lots and lots of lists and it’s easy to lose control of what we’ve subscribed to and where those things are on the web.

I started subscribing to lists back in 1997 or perhaps even earlier, definitely before spam became a problem and so every man and his dog seemed to end up with my address as it got passed or sold from one person to another. Of course spam legislations and other rulings now make that a ‘no no’ but it doesn’t change what has taken place in the past. The end result is that people tend to get an email address that they use for subscriptions only and then change it if the spam gets too much. And that’s where a new challenge comes – to the owners of the lists you want to stay on.

I frequently get emails from people asking me to change their details on my, or my clients’ broadcast lists. Or autoresponders that say ‘Johnnie doesn’t use this address anymore, please update your file to xxxx’. I guess that seems fair enough to the owner of that address but what about the list owner when they get this multiple times? Suddenly they’re faced with having to set aside time to update addresses on their lists.  Not to mention all the old addresses that need culling.

Many lists I belong to (and those I use) allow you to click on a link and update the listing yourself and I encourage you to do so.  Or if you want to get off a list, use the Cancel link rather than emailing the people who own the list to ask them to remove you – much less time and keystrokes involved for all.  And it’s easier.

And if you’re sick of changing addresses constantly, consider using a good spam filter online and then add the addresses of the lists you want to stay on, to the safe list so they can get through.  I use spamarrest and this has worked well for me for several years now.  KMT

Tags: Email Etiquette, Forums, Networking by Kathie Thomas
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Have you noticed all the different communities available now for bloggers? So many places to list your blog to attract visitors and readers, or dare I say it? Fans. Particularly since I’ve been hanging around LinkedIn I’ve been learning about other places to list my blogs, and to mix and mingle with other bloggers. LinkedIn has a bloggers discussion group and I’ve learnt heaps from them. If you missed my post on Linked in, then please go and read it now.

Going back to the blogging communities, I’m going to list some of them here for you to go and check out!

Blog Catalog – great place to list all your blogs in one place. They have a new discussion forum here and it’s a great place to get to meet other bloggers.

Bumpzee – this has a growing Australian list of bloggers here and I’m still just setting up my profile.

Digg – important to understand what this one is about and that you don’t ‘digg’ your own blogposts as that’s a quick way to get ‘buried’. Now, I’m still learning the terminology and my time has been limited over the past few weeks so I know very little still, but it’s worth going to check it out.

Mybloglog – another place where lots of social bloggers hang out, and travel from one blogger’s profile to another, leaving comments and joining your ‘community’.

Squidoo – love this one and am still exploring. I was going to list all my blogs in the one profile but then decided to categorise them so have 3 ‘lenses’ set up instead. Their list of ‘topics’ seems to be limited though – I’d like to see a bigger choice and perhaps that might happen with time.

I have two other lenses too:

http://www.squidoo.com/faithinworkplace

http://www.squidoo.com/kathiemt/

Stumbled Upon – still working this one out but you can do random visits of blogs and let people know which ones you like and don’t like. There is a toolbar you can install to your browser for use.

This is not an exhaustive list and I’m sure I will find others too, but thought it will help your blogging journey!  KMT

virtual assistant, blogosphere, LinkedIn, blogging, blogger, VA blogs

Tags: Forums, Networking by Kathie Thomas
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Recently one of the ACS team asked members on our chat forum about online facilities that would allow training via the internet to take place. She had an overseas client who needed training in the database program she was using for them and she was looking for something where the client could see what she was seeing on her computer at the same time. Sound like something of the future? Not at all! It can be done today and that’s what makes this industry so exciting – the possibilities continue to develop and opens new doors with the technologies that are available to us. But why don’t I let Tracey tell her own story? Click here for the full details.

If you are in an industry where access to the web plays a part in what you do, then it stands to reason that there is probably a chat forum or two where you can ask for advice, learn from peers and share what you know with others. It’s a great way to develop your knowledge and keep up to date with what’s happening out there, outside of your current working environment. Yahoogroups is just one of those communities but there are others too, such as Google Groups and more. My first introduction to the web early 1996 was through a community with Compuserve.

Many of these allow you to receive the chats via email so you can respond to the queries or discussions as they are happening. Some people don’t like receiving heaps of email though, so you can choose to go ‘nomail’ and log in at the website instead to view what’s been happening. Some forums have chosen to use php based programs and developed forums where you can only log in to participate – I belong to a couple like this but find I participate less because I much prefer the email method – for me it’s a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’.

Wikipedia describes the online communities like this:

A virtual community is a group of people communicating or interacting with each other by means of information technologies, typically the Internet, rather than in person. Virtual communities are also known as online communities or computer-mediated communities (CMC).

This article is also posted at my VA Blog.

online communities, discussion forums, online training, new technologies, virtual assistants, VAs

Tags: Forums by Kathie Thomas
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