Apr
10
One of the popular trends on the web right now is social media and/or social networking, and it looks like there is no stopping it in the near future. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit are among the many sites which are leading the way with social media, but is there a way for you to use social media to your advantage?
There are a few ways you can take advantage of social media for your blog. Sites such as cracked.com seem to be on Digg’s front page daily, and this success shows. Blogstorm.co.uk recently released a list of 100 sites based on how often they reach Digg’s front page. Cracked.com was ranked 26 on this list, and looking at Alexa’s stats is seems that it maybe a lot of where their visitors are coming from.
So, what advantages does social networking provide for blogs, and what are some ways to use them effectively? The most obvious advantage is traffic directed toward your site. From this traffic you can make some revenue, which is the goal for most sites. You can also build a loyal support base via social media. Looking at any of the social media sites, you can tell that they are very loyal to their brand. Just visiting any of the sites, you will notice arguments like Facebook is better than Myspace, or Reddit has a better user base then Digg, and so on. This loyalty is something that takes large companies years to build, but via social media you can do the same thing in less time.
In order to effectively use social media, you have to be part of the community. As we already stated, the communities are loyal for the most part, but they are not welcoming to outsiders. If you were to submit a blog entry to Reddit, or Digg, it will most likely get lost in the shuffle. If you were to only use Twitter to announce a new blog article, your chances of looking interesting to other users can be very low. So how do you break this trend? You have to become part of the community. This can require a lot of time. You will have to build a relationship with the users, and get to know them. This is a key feature that most people who use social media for advertising don’t fully understand. Most people are drawn to social media because it is a “free” way to advertise. Then they wonder why their plan doesn’t work, when they are not apart of the community. Some ways to start to fit into the community is simple, acknowledge the community. Comment on stories at Reddit, reply to tweets on Twitter, send personalized messages to people on Facebook. After you build a good network, then start linking to your blog, but continue to communicate in other ways. You can send a personal tweet or message telling a user that you thought they would be interested in an blog entry you posted, but only do it when you really mean it. After doing this, you have to remember not to “abuse” the community. After building friends, don’t send them links to every blog article you wrote. Respect the users of the service. Remember the saying “Respect is a two way street”, and in social media this is really the case. By not spamming the people on your friend’s list with every article you write, you are respecting them. When you actually do send them a link, they are more likely to read the link.
Don’t seem like you are in the community just for advertising. If you are using Twitter, make tweets about other subjects. On Digg, submit stories from other sites, which you truly find interesting. Making yourself not look like a person spamming just one site, will allow you to build friends also. A person may enjoy the article enough to look at your past submissions, and if they feel like there is something in common they may check out your profile more often.
Write about something the community will like on your blog. If you know that most of your followers on Twitter really like 80′s TV show, talk about those shows and be creative when doing so. Talk about how you think the MacGyver would respond to current events, or how a reality show would be if the A-Team was part of it. If people find your site interesting, and can connect to the content, they will be willing to look at what else you have to say. Posting an article on Digg about how to rebuild a car motor wouldn’t do as well as how to hack an electronic road sign. This is another aspect where being active in the community helps you understand what will do well on a social network site.
Make your site social. Allowing the user to interact on your site via comments, or a forum will make the user feel part of the site. They will be able to voice their ideas about the blog entry, and in doing so it will start to build your own community. This also allows you to get feedback from the community. If you post an entry that you thought was great but the community says they thought it was horrible, then you know not to write similar articles in the future.
Just like wine, it takes time to get the best out of social media. If you are expecting that social media will make a large influx of traffic to your site over night, then you should not use social media as a mean to advertise your site. Social networking doesn’t make advertising easier, it just makes creates more of a level playing field for the small blogs. With hard work, social media can be part of a site’s success.
Popularity: 23% [?]
Yes, it is time consuming and results are slow to come in using the social media. One however has to keep plugging away at it and as you say, be a member of the community in deed as well as name.
Yup I have gotten quite alot of traffic when working with social media.
i agree with the community aspect to social networking. we’ve begun using social networks to reach out to our alumni community. still figuring out what we’re doing… but it’s been well received.
Another problem in social media is to find the time per se. Just to get away from the grind and spend time in social sites is becoming increasingly difficult.
Yeah social media is the best idea
very good post
I think that it is difficult to maintain the relationship on more than about four social media sites at a time. I guess, that it depends on the time that you have on your hands, too.
Very rightly explained social media is really becoming an important source of traffic for websites, well target advertisement on social media can really benefit.
Good Article
Thanks
A couple of my friends swear by social media. I hope they got their time’s worth because they spent days of their lives if you added up all the time they Stumbled and Digged and now Tweeted. If you can get 5 people to Digg a new blog post then you could get a little flood of traffic from it. I’ve found it is mostly curious Diggers and the conversion rates are very low on social media sources.
I find digg is the best way to get a new site indexed fast as well. But As said above finding time to build links / market etc. AND throw in social networking can be a real chore.
Most people do everything and then find themselves left with no time for social media marketing.
yes…social media is good choice to promote and making wide networking
I hate using social media to drive traffic. Sure, it may be useful every now and then, but constantly plugging away at posts and the like, sorry, not for me.
Search engine traffic is the way to go!
Probably you must be carefully that you still have enough time for social media marketing…
Thanks, very interesting read, you should be commended on your website,
can see that you have put some effort into it, to many dud sites around these days.
Kind Regards
Social media posts definitely brings traffic to your website. Like mentioned above, it is hard to fins the time. It is worth it if you do though, word of mouth spreads on social media sites; if your content is worth while it will definitely be picked up. Good luck!
we’ve gotten mixed results with social bookmarking sites… some sites have helped us from a link building perspective and some have helped with traffic. we’re going to concentrate on social sites for a few months to see what we can do
You must be really careful not to look too much like a spammer. Your e-friends will surely appreciate you telling them about your new blog. They won’t however like you informing them about every single post and change on the site.
Well,
social media is the way to go when it comes to free advertising.
New bloggers and site owners don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars a month on advertising. 3-4 hours daily hard work on social media can get better results than advertising as it is SEO friendly most of the times which will up your rankings n start sending you traffic without any headache at all.
I get half of my traffic from Twitter. LOL
Regards
Laksh
I use both DIGG and Reddit. By efficiency of the traffic from these sites not especially has somehow like… Can-be it is necessary pump up more actively profiles, I do not know…
O_o
Yes, still at DIGG any not clear interface of management of transition to page how on a site transition is carried out and how is not present?
I use both DIGG and Reddit. By efficiency of the traffic from these sites not especially has somehow like… Can-be it is necessary pump up more actively profiles, I do not know… Yes, still at DIGG any not clear interface of management of transition to page how on a site transition is carried out and how is not present? O_o
More and more bloggers are discovering that becomes a part of social media sites can be benefits them for the raising of their blogs and also for them as blogger…maybe time consuming but it is also a big help in promoting your blog..
Time management is of critical importance when working with social media. It is very easy to get sidetracked and then ending up wasting lots of time whilst doing “social” stuff! The power is undeniable though, and SMM is a fast growing sector of Internet Marketing.
Social media is indeed a helpful tool for inreasing your readers or subscribers! Apart from that you are also having fun ‘socialilzing’ and stuffs.
This is a really great post somewhat stating the advantages of social medias when it comes to online marketing.
But just like what the author said: Don’t seem like you are in the community just for advertising. If you are using Twitter, make tweets about other subjects. On Digg, submit stories from other sites, which you truly find interesting. Making yourself not look like a person spamming just one site, will allow you to build friends also.
I think using social media to promote blogs has really some benefits as long as you have time.
I agree with you. Using social media is good for blog traffic and will increase our visitor. Good for marketing.
social media is one of the worst ways any beginners can start to learn when he first starts out, there is nothing guranteed in social media, SEO however is pretty much in the bag
-Bill
Social Media is a very effective way to generate viral traffic to a web site.
Yes I agree with this. A lot of people are joining social networking and for sure having an ad there will be a positive one.
This was highly informative
Many thanks to the poster.
yes, I also agree it, and I think that social Bookmarking also can get quite alot of traffic !
Nice post. Social media is really good platform of blog or website promoting. I used it for promote my blog.
Social media traffic is pretty lousy in terms of monetizing a site.
They aren’t likely to buy what you’re selling or click on any ads. More than likely they are writers/bloggers like you, so they are sort of immune to the advertising.
The bounce rate for a lot of social media tends to be pretty high as well…so its ultimate value is questionable at best. As a pure numbers game it’s great, but at some point you’re going to have to create residual traffic that isn’t dependent on you dropping, linking or digging.
Social media marketing is more enjoyable and satisfying than SEM primarily because of the personal relationships one can be build with people. Also, it helps establish your blog’s brand. The negative side to SMM is the financial ROI. Organic traffic tends to convert better a lot of the times as the visitors are more targeted/qualified. Just my 2 cents.
I think I really agree with you , thank you for your great post
I found your topic when I was looking for some ways to advertise my blog.
I’ve been wondering about it, so thanks for your writing.
Thanks for this really informative article. Keep it up…….
I’ve been trying to get into Twitter recently, but it’s not easy going! It takes a lot of time to get relevant followers and you can easily spend a lot of time tweeting.
Nice Post. Keep it Up.
Its Really help for me. Thanks
Yeah social media site are the real source of traffic like digg and twitter .. i was not aware of these sites but one of my friend told me about twitter its awesome … now i got hundreds of twitter followers. and so many traffic
social bookmarking sites are really good .. as much as your posts get bookmarked you will get more traffic ..
Social Media is huge. I was able to gain a 30% increase in traffic through SMM. But if you do it wrong, you wont see results, and this article is a great starting point to doing it right.
Social media marketing is an important asset to your overall marketing campaign, and if it is utilized correctly it can greatly help your business.
I find that social media is good for building connections with people who are involved in similar interests as yourself. It might not be an effective advertising strategy but networking and building connections is essential to any business plan.
I also find it easier to introduce people to services through social media as opposed to trying t pitch products.
be part of the community is right. but it is time consuming task. and it’s very hard to predict the effectiveness.
You might try advertising on social media but the results/effort ratio is pretty poor. I belive there are better ways to advertise a blog
I dont think that social bookmarking is worthwhile doing on your own; find someone professional to do it and put it in someone elses lap. It’s better to keep all social and work life seperate anyway
I can’t imagine a better place to advertise for free than social media. But its really really time consuming. Time mean money, so nothing is free.
All most bodies do aggregate and again acquisition themselves larboard with no time for amusing media marketing.
really true when i work social media its really giving lot of traffic thanks for nice post
its really true when i using social media it will give more traffic thanks for nice posting
I agree that “One must enter a community to be able to use social media effectively”. You must engage in discussions and actively partcipate in it. Your site wil greatly benefit from it. Social media is very viral.
I use my Twitter account all the time to help get thousands more visitors to my website.
Yes it is indeed a long time process to gain traffic to your site through social websites. Not only that you have to wait but you need also to put some good quality concrete time in building up a network and interact!
Very good article, thanks
ya,,It’s true that socialbook marking can make our site more famous if we create a unique post that attract people to our web, but its need our time to submit post regulary
Yes, I agree with you. Social media is biggest useful of online advertisement without money.. Those types of networks making us to do a good business they are the person’s who improve the company without paying anything. Especially In there we can make lots of friends to sharing our business ideas with various countries… Social media’s are help to improving our business..
Thanks for sharing valuable ideas with us..
Keep up your good work
Thanks
Phil
I would agree that social networking is way too time consuming. Much easier to pay someone to do SEO for your site.
The worst part about social networking is when you stop so does the traffic so you are always chasing traffic.
I will use this for my ADD/ADHD blog
addeternal.blogspot.com
regards, michael
Those types of networks making us to do a good business they are the person’s who improve the company without paying anything.
Hey Chad,
Social media is the best practice these days as it helps you out in generating a quality network of the people of your same niche.
Advertising your blog through social media helps you a lot. You get:
- recognition in your niche.
- scope of improvement, through constructive comments.
- company of like minded people.
- a learning platform.
And also the consumer database, new readers and the infinite growth opportunities.
I think that it is difficult to maintain the relationship on more than about four social media sites at a time but its not impossible you can market your blog through social media websites. Great tips. Thanks
the idea’s great! Stumble Upon works best for me. especially when i post some viral and completely unique content on my blog. you can get about 10k unique visitors per day in case your content deserves it.