There are millions of online networking sites available to the networker. With this amount of choice, it can be difficult to know where to spend your time online.

Before you can assess a site, you need to know what you want to achieve by maintaining a presence on that site. Or, whether you want to maintain a visible presence at all – as there will be times when you have a very specific need.  For example, there are many user forums available with a very specific goal, such as user forums for your satellite navigation system, developer forums for a range of wordpress themes. I have used these sites when I have a specific query, rather than phoning customer services – and these sites are often removing the need for a front line customer service function for a company.

Here are a couple of ideas to find the right online networking site for you:
 

• Do a google search on ‘online forum xxx’, where xxx could be an industry, type of person or a product which you need help with or want to meet
   
• Have a look how many members are active on the site – you are looking for a minimum of 1000 members
   
• Read the quality of the posts – is this a site which will enhance your credibility and personal brand by maintaining a regular presence?
   
• See how many of your competitors are regularly contributing to discussion threads. Too many of your peers may mean that the site is saturated with your particular specialism and it may take a while to build up a meaningful level of visibility and credibility.
   
• Ask questions on places like Twitter or LinkedIn to find online networking sites which other people rate
   

What tips do you have to find the best online networking sites?


To discover how to get the results you want from on-line and face-to-face networking, click into Heather Townsend’s blog on joinedupnetworking.com which accompanies her forth-coming book, ‘The Financial Times Guide To Business Networking’, which is due to be published in summer 2011.