In Part 1 of this article, we looked at why staying in touch with your team is so critical for network marketing success, why traditional methods of staying in touch with international teams ? telephoning or arranging meetings ? are no longer enough. We also investigated two of the simplest tools for keeping in contact online ? e-mail and instant messaging. Both methods are good for talking to team members one-to-one, or where you want to send one message out to all of your team members.



If you'd like the communication to go both ways, which allows your team members to work with each other and leverage each other's skills and experiences, though, neither will take you very far. There are free tools you can use to do this, but they're a little more complex than those we mentioned in Part 1. They include blogging, forums and online conference/chat rooms, and we'll explore each in detail in this article.

BLOGGING

A ?blog? (short for ?web log?) is really just an online journal. Anything you've found helpful building your business ? tips, ideas, articles, resources ? or revelations and personal successes you've had that could either educate or inspire your team ? can be written about (or ?posted?) in your blog. As you keep a blog over time, it becomes a record of how your business has grown. As new members join your team, you can point them to your blog, letting them see how you've got to where you are now, and subconsciously reassuring them that if you've been able to do it, so can they.

Most blogs also have areas that allow readers to comment, which can be a great way to get your team not only responding to your posts, but to each other's comments as well. As a side note, blogs are also great marketing tools ? they let prospects see the real person behind the sales pages they visit, which makes them more likely to trust you and your opportunity.

Two of the most popular free blogging sites are LiveJournal.com and Blogger.com (for an example of a Blogger blog, see the resource box). To set up your own, simply go to either site, create a free account, and then follow the instructions on the site to post. Don't forget to tell your team the URL for your new blog, and then ensure you keep it updated at least once or twice a week.

FORUMS

Forums are simply online discussion boards. They provide a space where people can meet and talk (outside of real-time) about different topics. They have the same advantages as e-mail, but they provide ongoing records of each contribution to a conversation (or post), instead of just having single messages going out to people's inboxes.

There are many forums dedicated to network marketing, and it may help to visit some of these to get an idea of how useful they can be for keeping team members in touch with each other, and allowing them to share knowledge, experience and skills.

Setting up forums looks far more difficult than it actually is. I set up a set of very complicate-looking forums for my team in the space of a couple of hours (starting with no knowledge at all), using the step by step instructions available at forumforfree.com. Be aware that if you set this kind of forum up, you'll need to be able to explain how to take part to your less computer-aware team members ? so be prepared to spend some time becoming familiar with it all yourself.

ONLINE CONFERENCES / CHAT ROOMS

Online conferences or chats are the nearest thing you can get to holding a meeting, without having to physically be in the same place. Just as teleconferences allow people who dial into a call to meet by telephone, chat rooms (also called conference rooms) are computer programs that allow everyone who signs in to meet online, talk with each other, and share resources and experiences exactly as they would at a physical meeting. Just as instant messaging allows more personal interaction than e-mail, online chats allow more personal interaction than forums.

Some of the instant messaging programs (e.g. Yahoo!) provide free chat facilities. If you don't want to use these, you do need to be aware that online conference room software will generally cost money. If you're interested in finding out more about these programs, your best bet is to go to a software site like tucows.com, enter ?conference software? or similar into the search box, and see what's available.

Remember, though, you don't need these more complex tools to stay in touch with your team, but they offer you extra ways to let your team know you're available for them. And remember too that all of the tools we've talked about in the last two articles are just that ? tools. They won't do anything to improve your team's retention rate unless you actually use them. If you have any feedback on this article, please don't hesitate to contact me. Otherwise, may your team grow large and strong ? there's nothing like helping other people become successful to let you feel successful yourself!