No matter what the nature of your business is, you need to advertise in order to make the public aware of your product or service. An advertising campaign can also help to establish a brand for your company. If yours is a startup, this is especially important, and you may be asking yourself “what is an effective, yet low cost way to begin?”

The only question is - how? If you’re new to the world of online marketing, it can be confusing. It’s not exactly apparent how it’s done, is it? You can breathe a little easier. I’m going to tell you how to use an article writing campaign to build your new business into a success - or if yours is an established concern, how to use article writing to propel your business to the next level. More importantly, I’m going to tell you how it’s done.

Social Power Linking has become one of today’s premier blog strategies, one that increases your links and traffic, thereby increasing profits from your blog.

Since that’s one of the main purpose of your blog site, learning how to use Social Power Linking (SPL) to your advantage is not only wise, but essential in today’s Web 2.0 world.

Because you are using a WordPress blog platform (you have been reading, right?), you are perfectly set up to have guest “authors” on your blog.

Again, I’m sure you’ve been reading about keeping content current and fresh, and how to hire out and delegate some writing duties. One great way to do that is to partner with another blogger in your niche, and post for each other. This is a great way to “get more bang for your buck,” consolidate your efforts, and make your posts go a long way.

Using comments, articles, helpful links you stumble upon around the net, or short snippets of information keep your site fresh. Using trackbacks consistently solidifies your efforts further, by getting you a link from every one of your posts on other sites.

These are my favorite social media related videos this week. Without further ado…check them out. Cool stuff.

1. What is Social Bookmarking and How Do I Use It?

In our recent post on social marketing buzz groups I recommended these groups as a valuable way to get some attention (links and readers) to your blog.

There is actually an even better reason, here’s the story.

As I was doing my morning “buzz group” routine, I came across a podcast from Robert Greenshields at MindPowerMarketing.com. He is a fellow buzz group member, and, per normal, I checked his content to see if I wanted to vote.

Wow!

He had put together a brilliantly concise audio pertaining to goal achievement that I Stumbled, Dugg and Sphunn!

I realized that I would have never come across Robert and his insights had I not been in this particular buzz group and wanted to connect with Robert even further. So, armed with our mutual membership to the buzz group, I sent Robert a request for an interview. He graciously agreed and the rest, as they say, “is a podcast”. (I know… they don’t really say that.)

Listen in as Robert breaks down the 7 steps to achieving your wildest dreams for success in social marketing. Once you understand his simple “system”, you can sit down for 5 minutes, create an inspired goal statement and be guaranteed to produce 2-3x more of what you want.

PS: I was actually impressed with the audio quality we got out of Skype on this interview. I live in Indianapolis, IN and Robert lives in Spain (despite the Scottish accent), so factoring in the distance and both of us on wireless connections, Skype behaved quite nicely.

Many aspiring social marketers are surprised when they stumble into a community of IMers who are secretly buzzing (promoting) each others content.

The Secret

These covert little communities are simple vote sharing networks and generally work like this:

Each member is allowed to submit a predefined number of URLs (usually per week or per month) and request that it be “dugg”, “stumbled”, “bookmarked”, etc. on selected social media sites.

The submissions typically arrive via email to each member of that community.

Each member of the group then chooses to either delete that request or follow through and “buzz” their fellow member’s post or article.

Obviously, if your an honest buzzer, you are going to be graciously responding to many more requests than you submit.

If you are finding yourself awash in confusion as you develop a social marketing strategy, here are 12 videos that explain every “pillar” of the social marketing edifice.

If you are beginner, this video tutorial is a must.

If you’ve “been around the block” and are now considering a coaching program like StomperNet’s SMARTS or NetSmart Coaching (recommended), the details in these tutorials will help you make a better decision.

In these 12 video tutorials Sean Wu of the now famous Tag & Ping provided what has come to be the quintessential explanation of social marketing at the Authority Site Summit (a private seminar in Las Vegas sponsored by the Authority Site Center).

He covers the following topics… (Download To View in .wmv Format):

Introduction to Social Bookmarking

What is Delicious?

What is Technorati?

What is IceRocket?

Tag and Ping Tools

What is 43Things?

What is Tag and Ping 2.0?

What is Flickr, Odeo and YouTube?

Special Social Bookmarking Services

Digg and Aggregator Services

Content Development for Social Bookmarking Services

The Web 2.0 Mindset

Check out more videos from our Free Video & Audio page… watch and share as you like, they are a tremendous free resource exclusively from Web2center.com.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Most experts would probably agree that excellent search engine optimization (SEO) combined with excellent social media optimization (SMO) will offer the best opportunities for more traffic, more exposure, higher page rankings, and ultimately, more conversion into dollar signs for you.

Social sites have quickly gained speed in the Internet world, and are dominating much of the traffic.

How can you get that traffic to notice your site?

Several “rules” apply for driving traffic with social media. Here we will focus on seven of the biggest:

1. Links!

Get several social sites going, with the different services that are available. Network to various online friends and contacts, and exchange links with them. More links will increase your page ranking.

Even better are the links that are relevant to your niche or theme; irrelevant and unrelated links can only help so much. For example, if your niche is patio furniture, you might try to link to others with gardening, pool equipment, or picnic tables, but probably not aromatherapy.

2. Get your content out there.

Keep your content fresh, and current. Regularly add content to your site. Help that content travel around the Internet by submitting your articles to various directories and gain more links that way. Static sites are no longer the way to go, they go largely unnoticed by search engines these days.

3. Reward incoming links by keeping them listed on your blog so that others may click through to their site.

Think of how many times you are listed on other people’s blogs! If everyone plays nice, we can get a whole lot of links together.

4. Tagging and bookmarking.

These are increasingly important social media tools. Be sure to add the links at the bottom of your blog so that others may tag or bookmark your site for other social media sites (you’ve seen these buttons, “digg it” or “add to del.icio.us” at the end of a blog item).

5. Allow others to use your content.

It doesn’t hurt you to allow others to use your articles or video clips.

Getting your information out onto YouTube or posted on other sites will generally help you get noticed. Now, this doesn’t encourage anyone to steal content but if others use your content and give you credit or a link, then this will help you.

6. Become a resource in your niche.

Developing your site and making it a place where people would go for helpful information about your topic will increase your credibility and make you the invaluable resource.

7. Reward those who promote your site.

If you have a visitor or user that especially helps you, put a posting or a banner or some sort of extra special link that is noticeable, right on the home page of your site. You’d want someone else to do the same.

These are just a few of the top ways to use social media techniques to increase the traffic to your website.

What other strategies have you found helpful for driving traffic?

Popularity: 5% [?]

Thousands and thousands of social media news sites…..how to choose the best ones????

You really should start with the social media sites that are ranked the highest, these are the ones that will drive the most traffic to your site most quickly.

The highest-ranked social media sites will definitely work the hardest for you, with more networks, more people, and more options available to choose from.

Some reports claim that most of the Internet traffic these days is on social media sites. That statistic is not so hard to believe when sites such as YouTube claim about 12% on Internet traffic alone. The numbers are quite staggering…..

Depending on exactly what you’re looking for, whether it’s videos, content, images, blogs, articles, or whatever, the value of each of these sites will be a little different for you personally.

But, according to Alexa, here are the top 10 best social media sites today:

youTube.com: Share videos with the world! Count the number of views, and get followers and subscribers, who can comment on your videos and help you gain visibility.

Flickr.com: This site is the number one place to share photos and images of any type. Your submissions can be rated and commented on, making them more popular.

Digg.com: This is the place where anything goes, bookmark and comment on articles, blogs, or pretty much anything. More diggs means more exposure and more links for your site.

Metacafe.com: Another top site for sharing videos.

StumbleUpon.com: Find the best content for any topic here.

Technorati.com: No great blog is left unturned, find every one of them on this site.

Scribd.com: Any kind of article you can imagine is located on this site.

Blogcatalog.com: More of the best blogs. All topics, all types.

Del.icio.us: Everything imaginable, every type of social network that’s out there is here. Network with the world, create your own network or just join other big ones and make your online contacts that way.

Propeller.com: Top Internet news place, find all current events and up-and-coming information.

While these sites might be considered to be the most popular right now, this is by far NOT an exhaustive list.

As the top 10 social media sites is an ever-changing list taken from the hundreds of thousands of sites like these, all of these sites are not necessarily firmly planted in their spots and don’t rest on their laurels at all.

Many, many social media sites are out there and fighting hard for these rankings. Every day, new features that affect user-friendliness, variety of topic/content, the ability to network, and many more factors affect the rankings and they are subject to change at any time.

With that said, these sites should be considered very solid and should be major mainstays to your plan if you think you’re going anywhere in the social media world! Networking through these social media sites is likely to get you more traffic to your site by increasing your Internet visibility.

In a recent Zogby Interactive online survey of nearly 2,000 people, some interesting stats made me think it is time to stop blogging.

According to the survey a whopping 86% of Americans said websites were an important source of news, with more than half (56%) viewing these sites as very important. However, fewer than 38% say the same about blogs.

What’s even more interesting… 87% feel that professional journalism plays a vital role in journalism’s future, along with citizen journalism (77%) and blogging (59%) but only 1% of consider blogs their most trusted source of news, or their primary source of news.

1% ?!

Am I busting my blogging butt to impress 1%? What about that 86% who think that “websites” are an important source of news?

Is it time to retire Wordpress, find those old html pages and ftp the “old site” back up to the server?

Not exactly!

If the experience I have gained working with “newbie” clients at NetSmart Media serves me correctly, I have a feeling that most people know not what a blog is. In fact, I would be confident in saying that the sites that people come to trust the most (outside of CNN.com) are indeed professional “blogs” that are perceived as “websites”.

So, I still say it is time to quit blogging but only in the traditional sense.

Traditionally, most blogs have served up some pretty lame content. Little thought and effort goes into most posts I see as I scour the blogowogosphere.

Crusty Internet marketers, aggressive adsense portalists, and straight up spammers have jumped on Wordpress platform like it was a golden chariot leading to fame and fortune.

This has tarnished the reputation of blogs with the Internet public and so, when asked, the “public” expresses their reluctance to trust “blog content”.

We Won’t Be Blogging Anymore

Actually we stopped “blogging” a while back. Instead, we started sharing social marketing strategies and tips on our new magazine-style website.

What, you thought this was a Wordpress blog?

Well, it used to be, but, in case didn’t notice, we installed a new Wordpress theme that retired the old chronological post-after-post blog look. In fact, we are about to upgrade again to a custom Wordpress theme that carries that magazine-style look a step further… that’s coming soon (or may have already been installed if you are reading this at a later date).

Get The Point

So, to make it all clear, those stats are telling us it’s time to get serious about your web presence. It’s time to consider a custom WP or blog theme.

Retire the traditional “blog-style” blog themes and come up with something that impresses, engages and intrigues your visitors.

You don’t need to look like CNN.com, but you do need to differentiate yourself from the millions of me-too bloggers posting miserable content to one of the hundreds of free blog hosts with lame templates.

Your readers won’t trust you until you do.

Popularity: 35% [?]

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