My mother always said if you cannot say anything nice about someone do not say anything at all. My dad , a college football and basketball coach for over 40 years never spoke ill of someone, well maybe some referees who he might of accused of being deaf or blind, but he always found a good thing to say.

One the web we are all in it together and if we want to be good citizens we should always care about our readers, customers,competitors. That doesn’t mean we should engage with the “trolls” who do not add any value but just enjoy being rude or obnoxious. They are best ignored or treated politely. Flame wars do not look well on blogs and generally tune out readers. We should try to reply to the conversations and comments on our blogs unless they are spammers, who usually are filtered out by tools such as Akismet and others. Comments make your blog come alive and and give you valuable feedback.They also allow people to start a conversation with you and other readers.

Social Media Tools such as Twitter,Facebook,Posterous,Digg,Buzz and StumbleUpon allows us to share with our networks of friends. We publish links to items we found useful and provide others with the link and our comments. By sharing we broaden our own networks of influence and help others in their discovery of useful content. We also provide exposure to others, and their ideas and learn also at the same time. Some people consider it too time-consuming to share feeds and articles they have seen. I reject that out of hand and contend that the simple act of sharing ideas is hard wired into us and makes us feel good. Referrals are the best way to grow your business.

I am currently participating in a 30 day blog challenge with about 240 other participants sponsored by my friend Dr Jeanette Cates and have found that sharing some of the ideas from others to be a worthwhile activity. I also try to read other people’s blogs in the challenge and make comments on their blogs if I can add something of value to the conversation. If you use a Facebook application like Networked Blogs or My Blog Log you can expand your networks exponentially improve your online visibility and give back also at the same time.

Maybe I see the Law of Attraction and simple triggers like reciprocity here. What do you think? Do you follow my approach. Lets have a conversation.