More Social Media Marketing Tips
I’m still answering the question how to best spend your time on social media marketing tasks. Choose one of these categories to start…
Social bookmarking: If you have existing content and need to promote it
1. Sign up for accounts depending on the information you have to share.
Sign up for Digg.com if your articles have to do with politics, tech or science and you have thick skin
Sign up for Delicious if you save a lot of web sites and want to target keywords
Sign up for Kirtsy if your stories appeal to women
Sign up for Stumble Upon for just about any content or web site (this is one of my favorites)
Sign up for Sphinn if you have social media and online marketing topics.
Use Google to find niche social bookmarking sites to target your content even more to a specific audience
2. Fill out the profiles/bios and add your picture.
Be sure to include bios and links to your web site (using keywords if possible) and other sites you’re on.
3. Build your network of friends, contacts, fans, etc (everyone calls them something different)
Find people whose articles you like and friend them or add them to your network.
Get to know the culture and learn the features. If you get stuck, search on Google for “how to” do what you are hoping to learn (i.e. “how to set up a Delicious account”)
4. Bookmark or vote for articles from people in your network.
Leave comments for them. Make friends. Later you’re going to ask them to promote your work by tweeting a DM to them, IMing them with a link to your blog, emailing them, etc. Some tools like StumbleUpon have notifications you can set for others asking them to review your link and vote for it if they like it. Don’t be selfish and only promote yourself and be careful of being a spammer. Make it about how you can help or how you add value, not how great you are (let them decide that).
5. Test article headlines and see what’s working. Note the type of stories that are doing best in your niche.
If you don’t have information to share, start building content
If you don’t have content but want to social bookmark, start blogging to build a base to start with. If you want to put content on other sites start writing articles to submit to places like ezinearticles.com If the link comes from a blog post it carries more weight. Don’t submit press releases, submit blog posts that talk about news and link to the press release.
Don’t start a blog if you have nothing to say just because someone tells you too. Instead, guest post on someone else’s blog and link to your content in the post. It looks bad to have nothing or outdated content on a blog and it’s a big commitment to keep it current and updated with the latest versions. Don’t start unless you want to do that.
Go ahead and create a Twitter account if you want. Fill out the bio, include keywords, put a link to your blog and a picture. Even if you don’t keep it up it’s a placeholder and can show up in search results. Same with social sites. I’m not a purist and I don’t think you have to participate in the community to have a profile, but of course you’ll get more out of it if you do.
Skim news articles and HARO emails to see what is hot and what people are writing about. Liberally steal ideas for headlines or stories but give it your spin or tailor it to your audience. Let these sites give you ideas and inspire you. If you’re in the arts, look at what stories are being printed in that section, etc.
If you don’t have a lot to say on your own, find a community and comment on other people’s work with a link or contact info.
Use Twitter search to see what questions people are asking (the advanced search has a checkbox to search for tweets with question marks). Then answer questions people ask. If you put your mouse to the right of a question you’ll get an arrow to reply to that person.
When there is something new, try it if you want and see how it helps or doesn’t affect your results.
If you don’t have news and aren’t creative that way perhaps sending out press releases isn’t a good fit.
Then, here’s my overall advice: do what is working. Find something that works for you and look for ways to find and join their networks. Ways you could partner, etc. Go deeper. If you’re not getting much traffic or the people who come to your site from certain sites leave quickly or you’re not getting leads or reaching your goal, stop that activity. Spend the time on what works instead.
Looking at the results I spend far more time on Twitter than it’s worth to me. I’d do better to tighten my focus or cut way back on the time I spend. It’s fun but it’s not really getting me anywhere. I could probably spend about 30 mins a day or less and get just as much benefit. Maybe instead of tweeting my links or tweets, I see if someone with a bigger audience than I have will tweet it out. I could schedule tweets out with TweetLater rather than spend time each day.
Don’t spend so much time reading and attending webinars (or just go to the ones that help you get quick practical advice on social media marketing - I like Joan Stewart’s - most are beginner to intermediate level). Once you learn enough to get started - spend more time DOING.
That’s my advice. Now I just need to follow it! If you have specific questions, please ask them in the comments. It might turn into another post - this one is already VERY long.
4 Responses to “More Social Media Marketing Tips”
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August 20th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
http://www.reddit.com is another social site that can boost your website traffic quickly.
August 21st, 2009 at 11:03 am
Wow! You have such an informative and interesting blog! Thanks for sharing such great info. I am a new blogger and I’m trying to learn as much as possible to make it better. Thanks again, keep up the great work!!
September 1st, 2009 at 12:20 pm
great list you got there. i am also using noddit.com, and so far it’s giving me unbelievable traffic. the rest in your list that i have not joined yet, i will start signing up now. thanks for the heads up!
September 15th, 2009 at 11:00 am
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