How to make online community work for you.

1. Be Yourself, Show your Unique Side and Tell Stories: Introduce yourself thoroughly on your Profile. Show many interesting aspects of your personality. The more unique things you share about yourself, the easier it will be to stand out and be memorable to people. Be true. Pretending something or someone you're not will just be a waste of your time in . It is when you share about yourself that can be of great benefit to you.

2. Bring Your Friends to : This is not about bragging how many friends you have. It is about introducing them to the community in for their benefit. Your friends may have needs and wants that could be met by someone in the community. When they bring their friends into , it will be something that you can benefit from as well.

3. Be of Help to Community Members: works best when members help other members. Welcome new members to the community and help them be at ease with the system. Send them Private Messages. Or read other people's posts. You might know the answer to a member's question, or might be able to recommend or introduce someone that could help her/him. Helping is the best way to introduce yourself. People are tired of hearing other people talk about themselves. When you help others, they will be naturally inclined to learn more about you on their own.

4. Create Connections: One of the best ways to help other people is by connecting them with your friends and connections. Matchmakers, whether for personal or business, are the most connected people in the world. When you match people, you have strengthened your own relationship with the two people that you have connected. They will also be most likely to return the favor and introduce you to their own friends and connections.

5. Grow your Circle: has many features for finding new people to help, eventually finding new friends and connections for yourself and your network. You can browse through your friends' and connections' networks. You can browse through the Groups. You can Search for particular people. Any of these ways can be used to make new friends or contacts. Read their profile, find out what interests them, and engage them in conversation through Private Message. If they are in the same location as you are, you can even meet offline.

6. Start a Group: makes it easy to start a Group of your own. It can be about location (friends and connections within a city or country), about organization (being in the same school or workplace) or about interest (hobbies, sports, other activities). Building Groups brings the community closer to each other. It brings members to share more things about themselves.

7. Read, Read, Read: is filled with many interesting people. Reading their Profile can help you find out more about the people you can help and connect. You will be surprised how much you can learn about a person. Still, interacting with them is the one of the best ways to learn more about the person.

8. Go Local First, and then Global: Check out the people who are within your general location. These are the potential friends and connections that you could be of help the most. Having more local friends and connections means that it will be easier to translate online helping and connection-building offline. With local friends and connections, you can easily organize meetups to further enrich the network that you have. With a strong local friendship and connections network, you can be of better help to visitors and guests when they visit your locale. They will be likely to return the favor when you visit their city or country. This is when you can get stronger connections globally.

9. Build Volume: The more people you meet and connect, the more extensive your network is. The more extensive your network, the greater the chances you will find that match for yourself and others, whether for personal or business purposes. Looking for a companion, a sports buddy, a roommate, a guide to a new place? Looking for a job, a supplier, a venture capitalist, a business partner? The larger your network is, the greater the chances you will find these for others and yourself.

10. Go Beyond the Norm: Networking is about going outside your comfort zone. Interact not only with your current set of friends and connections but with new ones. Enrich your relationship with members of your Groups by engaging them in conversation outside of the Groups' topic. Take your connections offline and meet up with them. Organize meet-ups and parties to meet them face-to-face. , in the end, is just a tool to help you enrich your social and professional lives.

And Finally, Look after your Reputation: Your online persona is your identity in this community. People will remember and know you by the things you do here in . The best way to build and enhance reputation is by putting others first, and yourself second. They will always remember you when you helped them find new friendships and connections. Find your strength within .