Ever heard it said … “to have a good friend, you’ve got to be a good friend”?

Image courtesy: Prosoundweb.com

Well its absolutely true! A group of friends with similar interests but complementary skills is beneficial for all involved, especially where each works to help the others in the group. If each member is an authority in their respective realms, and truly respects the work and skills of the others, the whole becomes greater than the sum of the members … which tends to elevate the “authority” of each of the members.

Consider for a second if bands such as Led Zepplin, the Eagles, the Beach Boys never united. And there it is in a nutshell … we’re stronger together than apart, assuming you find other equally talented but complementary individuals.

The previous 2 posts in this series are:
1. Blogging - Step 1 of the Authority Building Process
2. Foundation Friending - Step 2 of the Authority Building Process

So now that you’ve forged your Foundation Friends, you need to support one another, and start to build the authority of each other. At this time, you’re in the intermediate stage, where the goal(s) are to:

a. associate yourself with your specialty
b. demonstrate your skills and abilities with respect to your specialty(ies)
c. develop a larger following than just your Foundation Friends
d. develop momentum, which means continuously reaching outside current friend networks to reach others

Here are some tactics:

1. vote and comment on the blog posts and social media submissions of your Foundation Friends.

2. submit friends blog postings to social media. Social media is not about the individual, but rather the community.

3. reference the ideas of the others in your group on your blog
There are many benefits associated with referencing and linking out to the related and supporting ideas of others.

4. interview others in your group for your blog to give them and their ideas and knowledge some attention.

5. guest post on each other’s blogs to highlight the knowledge of the others, while adding much needed quality content to your own site.

All of the above tactics help in a number of ways:

• the more well known and authoritative Foundation Friends become, the more exposure you’ll receive as they will be helping promote you in turn.
• the more your profile is seen on related sites, the more interested people become in you and what you’re ultimately about. This will result in gaining more fans.
• leaving intelligent comments can lead to others appreciating your intelligence and ideas
• more people will submit your blog postings to social media, leading to more fans, friends, and authority
• you personally develop an increased profile amongst industry peers

All in all, there is a whole lot to be gained, and with very little effort. Merely by forging a tight knit team, awareness of all members of the team grows beyond the level any could have achieved individually, as does the abilities of each member.

Obviously, the above list of tactics is not nearly comprehensive. What additional ideas have I missed that should be added?

——————————————————————————————
Refresher on Authority:
Just to give a quick refresher, being viewed as an authority in any given space leads to others appreciating your work, and linking to it. Accordingly, authority is beneficial in two ways:
a. it generate direct business
b. it generates links, which leads to improved search results, which leads to increased business

In fact it could be argued that a high ranking on Google is merely Google recognizing a site as an authority on a given subject. Then, when others see the omnipotent Google perceiving the site in that light, further credibility is then bestowed on the site. Transference of credibility! Interesting isn’t it … that’s really how authority works.

Add Jeff to your social network!

15 Responses to “Friend Promotion - Step 3 of the Authority Building Process”

1. Nick James (44 comments.) Says:
   April 9th, 2008 at 2:02 pm

   Invaluable as ever, Jeff.
   Though you touched on this with the first point on commenting, I think it’s also important to stay in touch (frequent or infrequently), whether through messaging on Stumble, etc. or through Twitter, or whatever; as it shows a genuine commitment to the team and that you’re not solely there for your own personal agenda. Now I wonder who taught me that? Great cartoon BTW. Sort of reminds me of the Mars probe that was lost in 1999, after NASA calculated some technical thruster gubbins in metric, whilst a contractor provided data in imperial.

2. Jeff Quipp (69 comments.) Says:
   April 9th, 2008 at 2:29 pm

   Thanks Nick … I couldn’t agree more. Continue to stay in touch!

3. Paul M. Banas (3 comments.) Says:
   April 9th, 2008 at 9:17 pm

   Jeff,

   I think this is an excellent series you have going here. One question I have around the idea of Friend Promotion is a hypothesis I’ve seen discussed lately concerning diminishing returns from mediums such as Stumbleupon when your group’s sites are stumbled over and over by the same few users.

   It seems there is a perception of a penalty that occurs from having such a tight knit group doing Friend Promotion. People are seeing lower traffic counts if the same few people keep Stumbling their sites. Do you see this issue occurring as well?

4. spostareduro (26 comments.) Says:
   April 9th, 2008 at 10:24 pm

   Jeff, you are so amazing. I don’t have anything to suggest, but I’d like to add a copy paste of a quote that I keep close by if you don’t mind.

   “Maybe the greatest challenge now is to find a way to keep independence while also committing ourselves to the ties that bind people, families and ultimately societies together.”– Jane O’Reilly

5. Michael D (1 comments.) Says:
   April 9th, 2008 at 10:51 pm

   You continue to write all this smart stuff Jeff. I’m printing this and studying so that I can work on improving my value in the community.

6. Jeff Quipp (69 comments.) Says:
   April 10th, 2008 at 2:32 am

   @ Paul - its is absolutely true. Traffic from most major social media will decline if the same people support your material time and again. Diversity is needed … new friends! I touched on this and potential solutions in a post (http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/social-media-6-new-friend-acquisition-strategies.html). Thanks for mentioning that Paul!

   @ Kimberly - I love that quote … its so true. This is exactly why social media becomes such a time vaccuum for so many … as the number of your friends expands, so too does the time needed to properly support them.

   @ Michael - thanks! See you in LA in a couple for SMX Social.

7. Tom (1 comments.) Says:
   April 10th, 2008 at 7:51 am

   Very good advice and a point worth mentioning. I think as many people work alone promoting their own websites it’s good to remember that by working together one can often achieve a lot more. It’s the whole idea behind the web after all. I plan to make a far greater effort in the future to contribute more to the community, thanks for the tips.

8. Bill Hartzer (1 comments.) Says:
   April 10th, 2008 at 11:03 am

   Thanks for mentioning the friend factor. Too many people just submit their own stuff and never vote on their friends’ submissions and help others out. The more you help others out by voting, commenting, and building your friends’ confidence in you, the more it will pay off in the long run.

9. Alex Baldwin (1 comments.) Says:
   April 10th, 2008 at 12:53 pm

   United we stand. Divided we fall. I hold this to be very true, when I worked in the real estate market for Keller Williams one thing I did was help interlink their realtors pages to mortgage brokers etc. networking is the key to business and I love this article because some internet marketers lose that sense of real life networking and become isolated. Keep up the good writing.

10. Make Money Blogging (35 comments.) Says:
    April 11th, 2008 at 4:02 am

    That couldn’t be more true than in the world of the web. So many skills and areas of knowledge required that are needed most of the time. Team work rules ;o)

11. Dave (2 comments.) Says:
    April 16th, 2008 at 5:46 pm

    The dilemma is finding new friends but not so many that you have no spare time for anything else.

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