Hi @Rich-brooks,

Kudos to the SME Clubs!

Great topic for the crowd out there. Here is one idea that might help:

Badges: imho showing new leads, potential and actual clients coming into my blog/site that I have built a valuable presence in SME Clubs would be valuable. It would also allow me to give something back to SME bringing new members into the clubs.

Who’s up to badges? Please let me know your opinions.

Thanks!
Max.

Good idea about the summary — @joanmuschampfagnani   

Hello  @rich-brooks —  I’d like to see better opportunities for members as a direct result of being a member in good standing. It’s well and good to have special guest “speakers” that stand out in any industry.  I’ve found that to be a big plus of the membership here.  But other than that, how do the members stand out themselves? You have to spend a lot of time here, give good advice and be very active to garner attention.  Yes, I know, the LeaderBoard is a part of being active and having your posts ‘liked’ however, it does not provide the ‘trust’ factor that people seem to need to actually want to hire anyone for their services. 

I’ve reached out to several folks and have offered help to them; to swap service for service, etc., offered deep discounts when I see a need that I know I can fill, offered to take payments for what could positively impact their business, to no avail.  How do you prove your trustworthiness other than give good advice? I try to be pleasant and understanding and help where I feel I can.  Is it just me; does anyone else have the same take on this? 


Congratulations on a great first year, BTW, and hope you have many more successful years with this endeavor.


Eileen

@joanmuschampfagnani I like your ideas. I still advocate for a Twitter sub-Club since that’s my forte. @rich-brooks The year has certainly flown by and this forum has been valuable to me in friendships and information.

woo-hoo! 1 year old. What a great place it’s been. 
 ”many topics interest me, and I’d like to see an easy to follow summary somehow.” ~ @joanmuschampfagnani

I like this idea.

congrats!!!   i have  learned so much here and  appreciate the   feedback on   lotsof  my posts…..love the guest experts,…. how about  getting   some  real world users   on?  like   A RESTURANT WITH 2000 FANS  WHO LOVES FACEBOOK???   that would  be neat,,,, and  could  be   verly insightful…they could  tell how they did it…..

…  i  would like  more  real stories, real  business  campaigns, real  client stories,    and like  deeper  convos and fewer  links…. i like it when  we hear about the  background  of  different   views  …i would  reATHER HEAR THE MEMBERS   in their own words   than  links to their  place or  another  social media place….also hoping for more  real world   members….like the  golf course  woman or the   woman  sellling the combines on you tube!!  that was  so interesting….

its  kind of  easy to pick up the   big  general  theories……how things   really worked out in the marketkplace is what i care about the most..

Hi @annfurnivall 

I did not mean to come off as though I was looking for work here. The very few (3 altogether) people I have approached (in the year [almost] I’ve been here) had some very serious issues with their websites or business endeavors. I just wanted to help them as I knew exactly what steps to take to further their biz acumen and garner a lot more traffic. 

I am not here looking for business, at all.  I know what these forums are for and appreciate that approaching anyone with the idea of ‘solicitation’ is not a good idea, in general.  I was surprised however, at the response I received from one member and no responses from the other two.  Those two people became very standoff-ish too, where I thought I was building solid relationships.  

  
It’s too bad with being here all this time, that people do not trust that you are trying to HELP. However, I cannot put in the kind of hours it would take to actually train someone to do their own SEO, that simply does not happen that easily as there are too many variables to consider.  So offering to do the work for a pittance compared to my actual rate was a gift offering. I can’t put it any plainer than that. A simple “no thanks” would have sufficed.

On the other hand tons of people have approached me for FREE advice in private here (dozens actually) and that gets very tiring indeed.  I’ve finally started telling them to ask a question in the public area if they wanted a response. I do it politely and always respond to the requests.

The very reason I like it here is that plenty of the people have a lot of knowledge in areas that I may not know all I might need to know – sharing and learning is the goal, all the way around.  It is what I have appreciated all along. The web is still evolving and to keep up we need more places like this one to help us stay sharp.

This is certainly not the only forums I scan each day, this is for social media – I tend to spend more time with programmers in other forums.

Eileen

Congratulations SME! I love this place! Since I work at home, it’s nice to have a “water cooler” to take a break at during the day.

Thanks for the update.

@stevecurran The SME clubs are the bomb, aren’t they?

More I would like to see on the SME clubs:

- Post an update on my Twitter or Facebook account (depending with which one I have signed in) every time I contribute to a topic.
- Less or no points for making friends. I see people abusing of this for reaching a better score, and you have already take it down from 5 to 2 points, right?
- Extra points for mentions and +1 on your contributions.
- Rest points for -1 on your contributions.
- On the “Points” section, show how many points do I need to reach the next level on my score. That would make it more transparent and motivating I think.

@rich-brooks Are you going to publish/notify the resolutions here at the Clubs?