You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, sound familiar? While that rule is probably one of the oldest rules in business, in order to succeed on the internet you need to take it to the next level. Without doubt this is one of the keys to this site doing so well so quickly.

Over at TheInfoPreneur forum we have it down to a tee, spreading each others content and really helping each other, but what if you’re not part of a forum? Your army of mutual benefit soldiers should be so tight and so helpful that you can strike into your market place with ease.

  • Social

OK this is a no brainer right? You spread their content and in turn they spread yours? Doesn’t always happen that way though does it? When you get a comment do you visit that persons site? When someone re-tweets your content do you do the same for them? When they submit your content to digg or StumbleUpon or even refer to it on another site, what do you do?

Mutual benefit comes from working together to spread each others work, don’t worry about by spreading their site it could make it more popular than yours, if it’s that close between the two sites then you should be working together anyway not against each other.

  • Comments

Engage in other sites comments section, get involved. This boosts their website and post value, but will also raise your profile. It’s a win win situation if you help other people out on there site. I’m always banging on about commenting and how you have to add value, but if you see a comment on their post that really hits home with you engage in it, create a discussion, even if the author doesn’t get involved. By creating discussions you really are raising your profile and adding to the opportunity of replying and even better raising your profile.

Some people see comments as a competition, the feeling of not commenting too much on their site so that they don’t appear busier than you. This is a crazy attitude, as I said if a few comments will make that much difference then you are already visiting a site that is going to be bigger than yours so work with them not against. By adding real value and being the catalyst to a comments section you actually do the site owner a favour, one which they may well return.

  • Emails

Talk to each other a lot, now I get a lot of emails asking advice and help, anything from help with choosing a niche to logging into their site to see what plugin problems they are having. While this may seem like a lot of work for no reward, it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Now I know this will go against the traditional business model of helping a little to hook them, but I’m doing things my own way. I reply to everything and help everyone I can, why? Helping without asking anything in return (in a lot of cases) results in mentions on different sites and reader loyalty. Again I know this goes against good business practice, but like I said I’m going about things a different way.

If you see someone out there rocking it or someone who has a particular skill that you could use then email them and hook something up.

  • Under Dog

There are a lot of top dogs in my market place and I for one love that. It shows it can be done, but I have two issues (not a rant) with top dogs in my market place. Some of the ones I talk to are constantly telling me I can’t make the money I’m aiming for just using this site and they use niche sites to make the majority of their income etc. The other thing is some people have become slightly in awe of the top flight which can hold them back.

Imagine a Lion, ferocious and strong. amazing to look at a real thing of beauty and a force of nature. The lion is your top flight in your market place, the King pin. Now imagine a dog on it’s own, a pitbull full of energy keen as hell but it’s just one dog how on earth can it share the meal with the lion all by it’s self? You’re right by working with 10 or 100 other pitbulls, you still get to each just as much as the lion, but so does everyone else.

Everyone loves an under dog, so work with each other and build your army of mutual benefit. I have done a few posts about working with you, it’s a fantastic way to really transform both parties presence.

What does everyone think?

Terracotta Warrior Statues at Xian, China
Creative Commons License photo credit: kevinpoh

Please Comment

Please Re-Tweet, Digg and StumbleUpon

Filed under: Starting Out • Useful

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!