You've set up your Active Rain account (hopefully you are a RainMaker).  You have tuned your profile to be cooler than than 803.6% of the other ones here.  You have lurked and learned around the network.  And then you wrote (and hopefully published) a few blog posts. 

What more could there possibly be? 

There are a load of other things to do, and like building a hot rod, it is work that is never done.  There are always new tools and new subjects.  But we have the big things well under way.  Now it is time to get your blog out into the world... and maybe meet some people.  After all, meeting people is the goal.  So, it is time to be social. 

Let me get the pain over with quickly.  You need to join as many of the top social networking sites as you can stand.  And there are a LOT.  And it will take some time.  But the good news is that you aren't going to really participate in all of them. The goal is to protect your brand (username) by getting the same name in as many sites as you can, and then figuring out which ones to participate in...  Put the rest on remote control. 

• Start with a name...  Check it out here or here.  These sites allow you to check the name you want to use across a multitude of platforms.  (don't fret, I'm only up to being on half the listed sites... so far)
  
• Now that we have a name, let's make a profile happen.  Here is the next tool...  AtomKeep.  This allows you to syncronise a bunch of your profiles by only entering the information once and then populating it across multiple sites.  
• For the "special" sites that you ARE going to spend a good bit of time on, spend a little extra time making a better profile. 
  

What ARE the "special" sites?

There are a few places that you REALLY need to be... 

• FaceBook... AND at least one Fan Page
  
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Video site like YouTube and/or WellcomeMat
• Link sharing site like Delicious
• Photo sharing site like Flickr
• Local interactive forums and community sites

Each individual will likely find other sites which are of interest to them.  Don't be afraid to be involved in sites that have a personal interest.  I am a car guy and I am involved in several automotive related forums.  I have been for years... 

And?

There are two things that we want to accomplish.  First... we want to meet people.  We want to meet future clients, and those that might introduce us to future clients.  Second... we want to promote our business and our blog.  This DOESN'T mean spamming everyone on the planet with our latest blog post.  Even FaceBook Fan Pages shouldn't get a constant stream of "you". 

Remember back when we talked about profiles here at Active Rain?  Well, now it is time to get profiles working ocross other platforms pointing back to your blog... so that search engines see you as an authority (Google Page Rank, for example). 

That means we get to do three things... meet people, promote our business AND build our blog's authority. 

For other posts in this series, look just below the post.  There are a few "tags".  One of them says ambassador series.  Click it and you will get a list of all posts in this series... as well as some previous posts that are applicable. You might also find some of my social networking posts to be of interest.