Written By: Sujan Patel On August 28th, 2007 | 3 Comments
Think about this, a salesman and a friend both hand you the same piece of literature, which one are you most likely to read? Most would answer, the one that came from their friend. That is why social networking plays such an important role when marketing your site.
Lets face it. Ninety percent of people that start a blog or web site, have done so to make money. Regardless of how they may choose to monetize their site, the end result is the same. So why wouldn’t you want to take the high road and give yourself the best chance of success, right out of the gate. Remember the question above? Friends are more likely to buy from friends than strangers. They are also more likely to stick around and read everything you have written, raising your monthly page views and essentially making your site more appealing to advertisers. It works better all the way around.
Now that you know what you need to be successful, how do you add that to your marketing plans? Social Networking. Social networking is the fastest and easiest way to turn complete strangers into friends and of course loyal readers, in a very short amount of time. With so many sites like MyBlogLog and Facebook it can be difficult to choose a good starting point. Many people turn their efforts directly to MySpace.com, I am not one of them. MySpace is a great place for marketing if your a rockstar or an actor, but not for the average blog or web site.
MyBlogLog, as mentioned above, is an excellent community to get started with. I see more and more sites popping up with their MyBlogLog friends list in the sidebar, some of these sites are in the Technorati Top 100 list. MyBlogLog has a large following of community members and making friends typically comes very easily. You can add your blog, build your own neighborhood and let others join.
Facebook is one of the largest and fastest growing social networking sites on the internet. Sign-up, create a profile and add people to your friends list, your network and get involved. Share your thoughts, interests and most importantly your blog with all of your friends. Take the time to look at other peoples blogs and add comments, this will often return a reciprocal visit to your site.
Digg, well known for the Digg effect, crashing servers worldwide. Many reports have been made of traffic spikes in 20,000 to 40,000 people range within hours of hitting the Digg homepage. My suggestion for getting dugg. Sign-up for the site and start digging others articles. This adds you to the list allowing people to see what you have recently dugg. And of course the most recent thing you dugg is your own post, wink wink. This is a great way build additional interest to your articles. Another tip, digg other bloggers posts that have links to you. If they were to hit the homepage on that particular article, you would receive some overflow traffic from the link in the post.
Never overlook an opportunity to market your site. Always keep an open mind when you are developing your marketing strategies. There is a million plus opportunities on the web today and social networking is one of the best. Business has thrived around communities since the very beginning. Business on the web is no different, a strong community builds a strong presence and that is your ticket to success.
Written By: Sujan Patel On August 26th, 2007 | 20 Comments
The Basics
Make a Great Profile Page- You profile page is going to be looked at a lot. Make it exciting, enticing and friendly.
Make Friends - 200 is your limit, but you need friends to do well. Work hard to network and make friends.
Stumble - You need to Stumble to do well. To Stumble you need the StumbleUpon Toolbar. Stumble the articles, blogs and web sites you like. It is great to “discover” a new site, which means you are the first to Stumble that page. You want to Stumble quality material; humor, lists and “How to” articles are great. You can also use the Stumble button on your toolbar and it will take you to sites you are interested in; Stumble these.
Review Other Stumblers - When you give a Stumbler a review they often return the favor and review you. You need these reviews for traffic and a good Stumbler reputation.
Join Groups - There are groups discussing every subject. Find some groups in your niche and join. Try to make “friends”. You can also create your own group and attract a lot of traffic.
Don’t Spam - You don’t want to build a bad reputation.
Import Your Contacts From Email Accounts - When you import your contacts Stumble looks to see if they are using StumbleUpon. You instantly gain friends and can begin networking more effectively.
To Attract and Maintain Traffic
If you want traffic to keep coming to your site you need to offer a quality site or blog:
- Stumble your own site, but be selective
- Brand your site or blog- make it memorable
- Provide quality content
- Offer email and feed subscriptions in a highly visible place
- Always respond to comments
- Thank those that Stumbled you
- Don’t use tags that only a few people will search for; use tags that will attract large numbers
- Offer a different perspective
- Have a contest
- Offer your subscribers something
- Ask questions people will want to answer
- Create exciting an enticing titles to your posts/articles
- Create a blogging network where you and your network can support one another
- Discuss money- make money, save money, win money…everyone likes wants to know how to obtain money
- Link to your StumbleUpon profile page from blogs, MySpace, Facebook etc.
- Promote StumbleUpon
- Visit Buzz Section of Stumble Upon and notice the tags that are getting the most traffic. Use those and check back often.
- Be friendly and have a sense of humor
To have a power account on StumbleUpon you need to Stumble correctly and provide high-quality content that appeals to readers.
Have any tips, tricks or techniques to add, feel free comment or email us (sj at singlegrain dot com) and let us know.
Written By: Sujan Patel On August 20th, 2007 | 2 Comments
How many social networks to do you belong to? How do you keep track of all of them? Do you have to visit each site individually in order to keep up?
If you are like me, you belong to dozens of social networks and media sites. I used to spend hours going from site to site and at times would forget I even belonged to a few of them.
For people who belong to only 1 or 2 networks, belonging to an aggregation service may make little sense. The average person belongs to 5-7 different networks.
If you are the average person then the following options are worth looking into for managing all of your social networks in one place:
Profilactic
Profilactic is for anyone who contributes content to more than a few social networking sites like My Space, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, del.icio.us, You Tube, etc. It is a mashup of all of your social networks all in one place. They also have a clippings feature that allows you to collect things about you. For example your name mentioned in an article or a podcast, or a picture of you from a friend’s Flickrstream. Profilactic currently supports 35 sites and are working to roll out more over time. The currently support: 43 Things, 43 People, Bebo, Blinklist, Blue Dot, ClaimID, Consumating, del.icio.us, digg, Flickr, GameSpot, iLike, Instructables, Jaiku, Last.fm, LiveJournal, ma.gnolia, MP3.com, Multiply, MySpace, Newsvine, Pandora, Slide, tumblr, TV.com, twitter, Vimeo, Vox, Webshots, Windows Live Spaces, Yahoo! 360, YouTube and Zooomr
Lijit
Lijit is a search tool for all of your social networks. Once you sign up with Lijit, you can put their search tool on your blog and visitors can search all of your networks. Or, if you forgot which network that you posted that great article, then simply search for it in your Lijit search tool. One of the other great things about Lijit is that you can use it to put all of your social network links and icons on your blog sidebar. You and your colleagues can access all of your social networks right from your blog. You serve as a filter for all of the results your readers could possibly receive, ensuring they only receive the most relevant results from the source they trust…YOU.
Written By: Sujan Patel On July 30th, 2007 | 2 Comments
With Web 2.0 front and center, the general use of the Internet is evolving. As users change their surfing habits, so too must search engines change the way they provide results for their users.
For many years, search optimization was about core elements such as on page content, inbound links, and overall site stature. As more people mashup, comment, tag and bookmark though — the waters suddenly get muddy.
Inbound Links
More than any other element, the number of inbound links can be influenced tremendously by social media. Every time a user posts a comment on a blog, there’s another opportunity for a backlink. Every time you cite someone else’s posts, there too is another backlink.
With the use of tags, bloggers are encouraging others to basically create a network of links all involving similarly focused content. That is not a bad thing, but it does create more opportunities for people looking to game the systems.
Tagging & Bookmarking
We have seen Google push Wikipedia to the limits in nearly all types of search results. As more people Digg, Reddit and Del.icio.us posts though, there’s a scary alternative available.
Imagine if Google were to suddenly promote one of these social networking services in their results similarly to how Wikipedia is showcased. Instantly, thousands of less-than-ethical SEO’s and link builders would be spamming the systems for a piece of the treasure.
Is Interaction the New Backlink?
Optimizing for Google is all about Google PageRank, right? If you can score some links to your site on high values pages, you’re suddenly one step closer to dominating the SERPs.
As more people adapt to the community aspect of web 2.0 though, less traditional backlinks will become available — and more will likely be focused on interaction. Every time you comment on a blog post, rate a video, offer a Digg for someone’s content, or give them a positive thumbs up on StumbleUpon… a link is being generated.
Therefore, it’s entirely possible — and quite likely — those social interactions on the above services are what will create the new era of backlinks. To that degree, major engines are faced with a difficult decision. Should all links created through such social networking retain less value, or, should they be scored on using a proprietary algorithm similar to how PageRank is currently determined?
For now, we’ll just have to wait and see!
Written By: Sujan Patel On July 5th, 2007 | 1 Comment
Do you want access to over twenty four million Facebook members? Can you develop a 3rd party application that is of value?
Through Facebook’s Platform API you can now create 3rd part applications and even serve your own ads. This will be a great way to reach a new audience that is tremendously loyal. Facebook users spend a lot of their online time in their community, sharing their thoughts and interests with others.
So, how can you be successful on the new Facebook Platform? You need to make sure that your application is valuable and most importantly, viral. Every time a user adds an application or an update to their Facebook, it notifies all of their friends. Can you imagine anything more viral then that? Get a few hundred people interested in your application and the viral effect is huge. Plus when someone adds your application it basically tells all of their friends that you are endorsing this application and they should as well. The more people that install the application, the more popular it becomes.
Facebook is the ultimate focus group. Facebook users’ comments regarding applications will help you create the killer application. Are users speaking positively about an application or are the complaining about it and offering suggestions for improving it. Monitoring comments about applications will allow you to respond with better applications and the ability for free testing.
Do you currently have a blog that you maintain on a blogging platform? You can now import your posts into Facebook Notes. All you do is add your RSS feed into Facebook Notes and it updates every time you post to your blog. Your friends will be instantly updated with your blog posts.
Be careful, the new Facebook Platform can become addictive.
Written By: Sujan Patel On June 27th, 2007 | 4 Comments
Are you looking for new product ideas, are you looking for ways to improve your product, or better ways to market your product? How about capitalizing on some of the short-comings of your competitor’s products? Social media offers some of the most un-biased information on the web and offer a wealth of knowledge for new spotting trends.
Sites like Facebook, Digg, Stumbleupon, Youtube, Myspace (list goes on) are a good places to find new product ideas and extensive information on existing products. These sites have a huge user base and large amounts of daily traffic and are even better places to market your products.
Once you determine which social media sites to join(don’t be afraid to try more than one), the fun starts. Do a keyword search related to your product or service and those of your competitors, and start reading. Are common themes or opinions coming up? Is there an un-met need that is surfacing? Ask questions and test ideas in these type of websites. It is free marketing research right at your fingertips.
Also don’t forget to monitor Digg, Technorati and other blogs for interesting ideas. Bloggers are some of the most opinionated people on the web and they are not afraid to post their opinions. Blogs with large
followings can definitely shift demand or create demand for products and services.
Just today I read a story on Digg about How to build a better, tastier and juicier burger. Any restaurateurs out there? This could be a new product idea for you. How about coaching HR Managers on the 10 Mistakes Managers Make During Job Interviews? This was duggtoday as well.
New ideas are plentiful in social media websites. You just need to spend some time
research to see which ones you want to capitalize on.
Written By: sujanpatel On June 20th, 2007 | 12 Comments
Social media are the fastest growing online segment of the web and they are filling search results in the major search engines. If you are not participating in social media websites, your search engine rankings are going to suffer. The days of working on your organic search rankings for your primary URL are gone.Digg, Stumble Upon, del.icio.us, MySpace, Facebook, and the list goes on are some of the most popular websites on the Internet, so why not leverage them for SEO? They get millions of visitors a day, so there is no reason not to create profiles on all of these sites to drive traffic and increase your rankings. Social media is similar to search engines in that the most relevant and interesting content comes to the top.
How do you use social media to increase your SEO results?
Start participating on social media sites.
Look the social media sites that match your target audience and start building profiles for your brand, products and services. On your profile make sure to include links to your primary website. Most importantly, after you build your presence you must stay engaged with your audience. You can’t just build a profile and leave it.
Sites that offer friend requests, like MySpace, offer well-regarded search engine content that also links directly to your company’s web presence. So, the more friends you have the more traffic
Tagging sites like Digg, Netscape and del.icio.us, allow you to submit news articles. If the news you post is relevant and interesting to the readers, they will “Digg” your story by voting and your article will get more exposure to readers. The SEO benefits of more exposure are more direct links from well-trafficked pages to your site. Bloggers often pick up these stories and post them on their blogs, which will grow links you’re your website substantially. Build relationships with highly-visible community members Building relationships with highly-visible community members, is a way to help promote your own website. Seek out high-traffic community member pages that match your target audience readership and post comments related to their content. This allows you not only to be a resource to the readers, but also increases readership to your website.
Be in it for the long-haul Just like increasing your organic rankings, SEO in social networking takes time and effort. The long-run efforts for your SEO will be hard for your competitors to match.
Written By: sujanpatel On June 13th, 2007 | 5 Comments
A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of relations, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, trade, web links, sexual relations, disease transmission (epidemiology), or airline routes.îThere are thousands of social networks on the web. The biggest question most people ask is ìwhich one is right for me?î When evaluating social networks, you want you want to make sure that you can contribute to it, and most importantly benefit from it.
So, which one should you join? Below are a few that are worth looking into: 43things.com is a social networking site that asks the question ìWhat do you want to do with your life? You enter what you want to do with your life and based on the tags that you use, it connects you with users with similar goals. You can see how others are working toward their goals and encourage them and get encouragement yourself. This concept is also known as folksonomy.
MySpace, BlackPlanet, Bebo, Friendster, Orkut, Windows Live Spaces, Yahoo 360 and Xanga, are among the most popular social networking websites. Most of them offer an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, forums, groups, events, photos, music, videos and classifieds. MySpace is currently the world’s fifth most popular English-language website and the third most popular website in the United States. It receives over 80% of visits to online social networking websites.
Facebook was originally developed for college and university students but is now open to anyone who has an email address. You can join networks related to high school, college, place of employment, or geographic region.
Flickr is a photo-sharing website to help people make their photos available to people who matter to them. You can keep your images private or share them with the world of with groups of people who share your interests. Images can be tagged, allowing ease of finding them or ones like them in the future.
LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site, used for professional networking. It allows you to connect with past and current co-workers, clients, venders, and other professionals. You can receive and give recommendations for the work you have done or received. It also has a job engine allowing you to respond to job postings and the company can view your online profile.
Twitter is a blogging service that allows users to send short text-based updates to their blogs as well as to twitter.com. You can track your friends and colleagues by checking out their updates. Senders can restrict the delivery to those in their circle of friends or display for everyone to see. Messages can be posted through twitter.com, SMS or by instant messenger.
You best bet is to visit a number of social networking sites and see which one fits your interests and goals. Ask your friends and colleagues which ones they belong to. Most importantly, have fun with it.
