Secrets to Success Deborah Cole Micek and John-Paul Micek

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Networking sites can be a gold mine

ONLINE social networking. Ahhh, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Or better yet, let me count the number of social-networking sites that are on the Web to date.

No. I'd never finish this article if I did. That's because counting the number of social networks online is like counting sand on the beach. The moment you think you're done, another hundred pop up out of nowhere, waiting to be counted.

Instead, just start with the No. 1 online social-networking site: MySpace.

Wait! Don't stop reading! Just because you thought MySpace was a space for teens or political pundits, does not mean you can afford to ignore this tool.

I used to think the same thing. I pooh-poohed getting a space on MySpace until I had to fly to Singapore to teach 360 business owners how to use it. You can bet your left eye I quickly scrambled to get my own profile up and running, adding friends by the hundreds and really testing out this social-networking site.

As a new-media marketing expert who wrote a book on the subject, it was almost embarrassing that I ignored MySpace for as long as I did. Then again, I ignored blogging when I first heard about it.

I've not only met hundreds of brilliant people through MySpace, I've also landed numerous 10K deals, without ever even meeting the person face-to-face.

What a great time to be alive!

Remember when you were a little kid, you would dream about being a TV star, famous all around the world?

Well, this is the century where you can turn that dream into a reality.

Time magazine acknowledges YouTube along with a variety of new-media tools as having caused a revolution. Naming "you" the Person of the Year, they pretended as though they get it; but they completely missed the mark right in the first paragraph.

Talking about the "Great Man Theory" and saying the theory took a "beating this year" does not acknowledge why this theory took a beating, nor who is really behind it all.

The tool that made this possible is not the "World Wide Web" as Time's Lev Grossman talks about what was created 15 years ago. Rather, it's the "World LIVE Web" which puts easy-to-use tools into the hands of men and women everywhere to so they can syndicate their content the moment they hit the "publish" button.

That's the power of new media. That's the power of using online networking, blogs, podcasts and video-casts to get your message across

Let people meet "the real you" through MySpace and YouTube and they'll hire you without reservation and (here's the part I like the best) without any "sales" on your part.