If you have a specific question that you think the Community may have already discussed, using this tool is an easy way to find the information you need. The search field is located at the top of the Community home page.
For example, if you're looking for information about small business taxes, you can input "taxes" in the search field to find discussion on the topic. Try this search and you'll find a great discussion about some interesting tax advantages of running a home-based business.
If you want to search with more specificity, try using the advanced search function. Here, you can search subject lines, tags, or within specific discussion boards only.
Search tags to find local information
Community users have the opportunity to assign a "tag" to each of their posts. Tags are small bits of information that describe what the post is about. If users tag their posts with their state and/or city, other users can find the post by doing a tag search.
For example, if you're trying to find discussion about Ohio, you can use the Advanced Community Search and enter "Ohio" for your tag search term. Check out these results.
The more accurately users tag their posts, the more robust tag search results will be - so please, tag your posts!
If you want to browse a specific topic, take a look at the “top tags” field on the right panel of the Community home page.
Follow the Community in a feed reader
Many of you may already use a feed reader, sometimes called an aggregator*, to follow news media - but did you know that you can use a reader to follow discussions in the community? Inside a board or a thread you'd like to follow, select "Subscribe to this Board/Thread's RSS Feed." Follow the instructions from your feed reader of choice on how to import the feed. This allows you to watch several feeds from one location. Many websites already offer feeds, or "syndication", including blogs, news sites, job boards, and so on. You can even follow the Business.Gov Team's Twitter feed*.
Don’t be intimidated by feeds, they are really easy to use and can greatly increase your productivity.
Encourage and support good community behavior
If you think someone has posted something worthwhile, let them know by giving them a "kudo". Just click the gold "Kudos" box with the white star. This helps the Community to stay vibrant and on topic.
Provide the Business.Gov team with feedback
Every so often we post a question in our ideas exchange. Recent topics have included where to go for business advice and what topics should be discussed on the site.
You can find more specific instructions on using the Community tools on our FAQ page.
* This hyperlink goes to a non-government website
Message Edited by StuartR on 09-29-2009 09:18 AM
We need your help! Please answer our poll which you can find at the top of each discussion forum.
