Participate in Question and Answer Sites to Market Yourself

I go through spurts where I monitor and participate on Question and Answer web sites. Usually I monitor Yahoo Answers & LinkedIn Answers via RSS feeds.

I gather a lot of information and knowledge this way and keep organized using tags in Google Reader and Google Notebook.

I also participate and give my answer or feedback on questions from time to time.

I haven't been doing this for a couple months now, but I did actively participate for months at a time.

I recently got the following email off LinkedIn:

For a while now, I've been digging around for answers to a question that no one seems to be able to answer. Your name keeps coming up in my searches. If you don't mind, I would like to tap your brain.

How would you project your monthly costs in terms of storage and bandwidth if you didn't know

how much traffic to expect on your startup photo/video sharing site?

This is just one notable connection I've made via social networks, thought it showed the value of a continued presence for your business on Questions and Answer web sites.