What is Social Media Optimization and How Can I Do It?

Social media optimization is one of the primary online marketing strategies you need to know--and it's getting more important every day. It is a catch-all term for making your pages more visible in social media searches and easier to link to.

It also refers to making your content easier to distribute via other websites, in a way that helps instead of hurts you (i.e. doesn't violate your copyright, brings in good social media traffic, etc.). Her are some social media optimization basics.

One of the most basic things you can do to improve your standing with social media is to place social media buttons on your web pages. Sites like Digg, Reddit, Sumbleupon and Technorati all have graphic buttons you can insert into your web pages, which make it easy for users of those sites to add you to their favorites list on those sites.

Finding those buttons isn't hard--it's easy to find the html for these buttons on each site (you can use Google or the site's own internal search engine). If you used WordPress to build your site, or you're running a Wordpress blog, a plugin called Socialble lets you add these buttons with the click of a mouse.

Digg.com has a special "Digg This" button that can work out better for you, if you think you'll be getting a lot of Digg traffic. This button allows members to vote on your site instead of adding a new bookmark or story. More votes give you a more powerful link/story, vs. many smaller ones. A few other social bookmarking sites--like Sphinn--offer this as well.

RSS feeds are another good way to increase your social bookmarking optimization, if you have a blog. Sites like Technorati--the number one social media and bookmarking site for blogs--and Google Blog search use RSS feeds to index blogs. Having an RSS feed also

Adding an RSS feed is relatively simple. Feedburner.com provides an easy way to RSS feed to your blog, making it great for beginners. It also offers tracking, and

Using video and photo sites is another essential part of social media optimization. You'll definitely want to get an account with Flickr.com. Then, add all the images from your blog or website, and link them to the appropriate pages or posts.

Video sites are good for increasing your visibility, as well. You can make a video of yourself or a friend using a product or talking about your niche. You can also use software like Camtasia, to make instructional videos.

Once you've done this, add a black bar at the bottom of the screen, with your website's name on it, then submit it to YouTube, Google Video, and any other video sharing site you can think of. If your video catches some attention, it may wind up on other people's blogs or websites. This helps out the website owner by providing free content--and helps you out by providing "free advertising" and social media optimization!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1454791

Four Things You Need To Get Free Social Media Traffic Fast

Social networking is one of the fastest ways to generate traffic to your business website.

There are several strategies, from blog posting, guest posting, article marketing, email marketing and video marketing that a new entrepreneur should utilize.

If you are new in the business, setting up a new website, consider the following 4 social media tips for fast traffic.

These are straight-forward, easy tips - but very powerful. Get some help on sites like elance.com or oDesk.com - if you need to outsource.

And, if you need to create fun, interesting "baits", try different advertising options on Fiverr (yes, it costs you 5 bucks to test, so try different avenues, and get ideas to be a little different).

Tip #1: Create a Facebook page for your business.
If you want this strategy to work, though, you have to do more than that. You have to communicate with your fans and work toward building relationships with them. If conversation only goes one way and you do not participate, you can be sure that it will end up being time wasted for you. Your best bet is to schedule at least a half hour a day to Facebook time. During this time, visit other businesses and respond to posts from your fans. Just telling someone that their day will get better will go a long way for your business. Open up the conversation with questions (after you have spent some time understanding your audience first, of course!)

Tip #2: Use the social sites, like Facebook and Twitter, to offer an awesome coupon or related offer.
Many businesses are now offering coupons and discounts right from their fan pages. Within a few hours, your fan base can double or even triple. As you capture their curiosity about how they can save money on your products, you can be sure the traffic to your website will increase, as well. If you are local, consider groupon.com and foursquare.com as well.

Tip #3: Video marketing is another way for businesses to drive in a lot of traffic quickly.
Publish an informative video or one that is funny enough to grab their attention and you stand a great chance of it going viral. Some videos have received thousands of hits within twenty-four hours of being published. You just have to be sure that the video highlights your business and portrays your business in the best light possible. And, make it 1-3 minutes in length. Try to be a little different, and don't try to pitch too hard. "People like to buy, but not be sold to", as the saying goes.

Tip#4: Utilize a blogging system to get the traffic you need.
Many of the most successful businesses noticed an immediate increase of traffic when they started blogging. When creating your own blog, be sure to keep it updated, as visitors come back for new information. However, you do not want to stop there. By visiting other blogs and posting comments on them, you will drive a surge of traffic to your own site. My most popular blog platform is WordPress. You can get one for free at WordPress.com, or download your own (for hosting) at WordPress.org.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6649918

A Guide To Choosing The Best Social Media Website To Help You With Website Traffic Generation

There are so many social media websites these days it is quite difficult to determine which one would be the best fit for the business you might have. Many social media platforms offer different advantages, but for the most part a lot of them are very similar so there is really no reason to be intimidated. In this article I'm going to give a few tips on how to choose the best social media website in order to help you with website traffic generation.

One of the first tips I can offer you when it comes to choosing a good social media website would be for you to investigate several social networks. You will want to bounce around to test various ones so you can see which has the most people in your particular industry. You will also want to see which ones have the most potential customers as well. This is quite easy when you look into particular groups on these social networking sites.

When you are trying to use social media websites for website traffic generation you want to test them first. What you want to do is look into them individually to see which one suits your particular personality. You also want to see which ones will suit your particular marketing needs along with your technical capabilities. Some social networking sites are easier to use than others, and may offer you a better chance to get your messages out there.

Lastly, when you're trying to choose the best social media website to help you with website traffic generation it is best to join one of them for real and get things going. The ones you will want to join for real will usually be those that have the most traffic and the most brand recognition. These are probably going to include twitter and Facebook. Make sure you take the time to create a personal profile and take things slowly at first.

I hope I have been able to help you when it comes to you choosing the best social media websites to help you with website traffic generation. I know it can seem difficult at first, but it really isn't when you remember what I've mentioned in this article. All you have to do is investigate several social networks before you sign up to one of them, find one that suits your personality the best, your technical capabilities along with joining one or two of them for real just to get the ball rolling.

The best way to choose a social networking site would be to jump in the water and determine if it is suitable for you to stay in.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6093885

Advanced Social Media Training - Drive Free Traffic!

How Powerful is Social Media Marketing - Can it Make a Difference to Your Offline Or Online Business

Can small, medium and large businesses survive these days by using traditional marketing methods only? Can social media methods increase traffic to both offline and online businesses? Will the results of a social media traffic campaign make a noticeable difference?

These are all great questions, firstly let's address whether a business can survive using traditional methods only. The answer is yes however they will be missing out on free traffic that will make a difference to their bottom line. In today's market social media traffic for your website can come from a bunch of areas, most notably Twitter, Facebook and video marketing.

Let's focus on Twitter which is a micro blogging site where people post short "tweets", no more than 140 characters, about personal situations, stories of interest, a direct communication between 2 tweeps (people) or finally promoting their business, service or product. It's a great environment, I personally love it, but it can be a bit daunting for the uninitiated. Treading the waters of Twitterville can be a lonely experience at first, not knowing how to build up followers or what you should do is like being at a bit shy and at a party not knowing anyone.

The good thing is it takes very little time to master the Twitterverse, build your follows and have a raging good time. Beware getting hooked as it can absorb all your time. A good rule of thumb is to follow up to 50 people a day, communicate with 5 to 10 directly, retweet interesting posts and every now and then post an interesting message about your product, service or business.

I would like to give you an example of how powerful social media can be: recently I received a friend request on Facebook from a guy who lives in the same city as me, he is a real estate agent by vocation and lives about 5 minutes from me. He has now referred a property to me that they cannot sell & I am joint venturing with the owner on the sale. I posted a Tweet on Twitter about the property I received a reply from an interested party who also lives in my city, we met and although this property is not for her, we discussed other joint venture ideas that are mutually beneficial. This has all come about through 2 powerful social media sites and indicates the power of networking.

So you can see how social media traffic can make a resounding difference to generate leads and sales. Offline businesses can also benefit from this creative marketing stream

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2809542

Is Your Business Taking Advantage Of The October Social Media Boom?

A recent study has revealed that October is the second busiest month for social media use, just behind December, with Facebook topping the list. It is most likely that festive arrangements and celebrations make December top of the rankings when it comes to social media traffic and Christmas sales is just one good reason why businesses should be taking advantage of the October traffic boom by using a variety of techniques.

Universities and colleges commencing their autumn terms, as well as the working population returning from their holidays, means that sites like Facebook are useful communication tools during October when there is lots to catch up on over the summer months and many new friendships are being formed.

In order to take full advantage of this October boom, companies and brands need to increase their social media engagement and offer fans and followers even more reason to become a brand ambassador and join the social chatter. Social media sites have become a fantastic way for brands to connect with a captive audience but businesses must keep content fresh and interesting as well as make it as relevant as possible for their target audience. For example, the increase in students staying up to date with the latest happenings on campus in October is the perfect opportunity to target this group with a campaign, offering something for free or discounted to students has the potential to go viral very quickly.

By using social media as a PR and marketing tool, companies are able to drive Christmas business from October right through to the busiest month, December. Must have gift items should be being highlighted on social platforms now and also used in posts to generate engagement, whilst fans' endorsements of products should start be utilised as much as possible - reply, re-post or retweet. With high inflation continuing and more tough economic times ahead, sales, promotions and competitions can help brands cash in early from those looking to buy early and get a bargain. Running exclusive competitions and offers through social media sites is attractive to users when very little is required in return.

Many companies have their own Facebook or Twitter profiles and the trend will almost certainly continue to increase in 2012, especially when Google+ brand pages go live. By having the social media presence they realise the potential of using these networks as a business tool for brand awareness and product promotion. However, by creating targeted campaigns and taking advantages of traffic peaks, the potential for a brand's bottom line to be positively affected increases.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6631463

What is Social Media Optimization and How Can I Do It?

Social media optimization is one of the primary online marketing strategies you need to know--and it's getting more important every day. It is a catch-all term for making your pages more visible in social media searches and easier to link to.

It also refers to making your content easier to distribute via other websites, in a way that helps instead of hurts you (i.e. doesn't violate your copyright, brings in good social media traffic, etc.). Her are some social media optimization basics.

One of the most basic things you can do to improve your standing with social media is to place social media buttons on your web pages. Sites like Digg, Reddit, Sumbleupon and Technorati all have graphic buttons you can insert into your web pages, which make it easy for users of those sites to add you to their favorites list on those sites.

Finding those buttons isn't hard--it's easy to find the html for these buttons on each site (you can use Google or the site's own internal search engine). If you used WordPress to build your site, or you're running a Wordpress blog, a plugin called Socialble lets you add these buttons with the click of a mouse.

Digg.com has a special "Digg This" button that can work out better for you, if you think you'll be getting a lot of Digg traffic. This button allows members to vote on your site instead of adding a new bookmark or story. More votes give you a more powerful link/story, vs. many smaller ones. A few other social bookmarking sites--like Sphinn--offer this as well.

RSS feeds are another good way to increase your social bookmarking optimization, if you have a blog. Sites like Technorati--the number one social media and bookmarking site for blogs--and Google Blog search use RSS feeds to index blogs. Having an RSS feed also

Adding an RSS feed is relatively simple. Feedburner.com provides an easy way to RSS feed to your blog, making it great for beginners. It also offers tracking, and

Using video and photo sites is another essential part of social media optimization. You'll definitely want to get an account with Flickr.com. Then, add all the images from your blog or website, and link them to the appropriate pages or posts.

Video sites are good for increasing your visibility, as well. You can make a video of yourself or a friend using a product or talking about your niche. You can also use software like Camtasia, to make instructional videos.

Once you've done this, add a black bar at the bottom of the screen, with your website's name on it, then submit it to YouTube, Google Video, and any other video sharing site you can think of. If your video catches some attention, it may wind up on other people's blogs or websites. This helps out the website owner by providing free content--and helps you out by providing "free advertising" and social media optimization!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1454791

Traffic Generation Social Media

Social Media - The New Wave Of Internet Traffic

When social networks started springing up everywhere, marketers and advertisers were kind of blaze about it - blowing it off as yet another gimmick that will come and go. While Google AdWords ruled the ad space for the last 10 years, social media has gained a lot of ground and now Facebook overtook Google in terms of traffic. Combining Facebook traffic with all the other social networks and it really dwarfs the search engines.

While many marketers are now jumping unto the bandwagon, it does not mean that search is dead. Search traffic is still one of the most targeted and most predictable traffic sources on the internet and something you cannot ignore. Social traffic is a completely different kettle of fish. Its nothing like search and unless you are a very sophisticated advertiser and marketer you simply won't get the benefit or the results that social traffic can deliver.

Traffic from social networks are nothing like traffic from search engines. When you buy Pay Per Click traffic from AdWords you can be very precise in your targeting. On top of this you know that people are actively looking for information and sponsored search allows you to place your ad in front of these people who are actively searching.

On social networks, people are not looking for anything specific. For the most part they are going about their own business and do not even want to be advertised to. You quite literally have to grab them by the throat and drag them into your world. All and all its a much tougher source of traffic to crack and although many marketers are selling it as "tons of cheap traffic" you are likely to have a very different experience when you start testing for yourself.

Social media traffic is here to stay and it is a force to reckon with. Social sites are hugely popular and it has an audience that are engaged and loyal. It offers a lot of traffic potential but you will have to reformulate your entire approach and market to these people from their shoes if you want to see real results.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4846317

Social Media Marketing Is Very Useful

Social media marketing is one of the most effective channels in advertising your product and services. Traditional marketing strategies are still considered efficient these days. However, these things can get pretty slow and old. Sticking to print ads, television ads, billboards and flyers may not catch the attention of your audience. If you want your business to grow, then you should focus on increasing the number of your target market. The following are the four reasons why you should consider incorporating social media marketing with your business.

It's natural. Once you have properly set up your web site, you can get connected to popular links without being obvious that your goal is to get their 'borrowed trust'. Your web page is published to the public in a spontaneous manner that makes it appealing to online users. That is one of the advantages of social media marketing from paid advertising. The latter tends to have blunt commercial tones which make them unattractive to the public.

It's defensible. Learning how to do this marketing strategy correctly will help you create the massive traffic that you need to make your business popular. Social communities and search engines are few of the sources that you can get your web traffic from. Search engine traffic is harder to increase because of the highly competitive keyword search. On the contrary, social media traffic can easily be controlled if you have a personalized and creative looking web site.

It has low cost and profitable returns. Social media marketing is an inexpensive way of advertising your products and services. For one, you can do it on your own to save you from the expense of hiring a professional programmer. The cost of using social media tools for your marketing strategy is limited to either a one-time pay or none at all. Plus, the benefits are countless. You are able to obtain the publicity that you want and save money at the same time.

It complements other marketing strategies. This is one marketing method that is focused on its target market. It does not hinder your other marketing plans from creating web traffic for your site. Social media marketing helps your marketing strategies to hit web sites and search engines that will increase the number of your customer base.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5336476

Use Social Media Tools To Improve The Traffic In Your Site

These days, a lot of people use Facebook and Twitter to name a few to keep updated with their peers and colleagues. Moreover, this has also been a great avenue where online entrepreneurs can market their products as well as services to their clients. In fact, social networking sites are now being used in order for you to generate the traffic to your site. What is great about social networking site as a great marketing strategy is that you can link it to your WordPress blog by using a WordPress social media traffic plugin. Before, updating your blogs on your Facebook or Twitter can be a difficult task the fact that you need to go online daily and post the links of your site which can take up a lot of time and effort in your part. Aside from time consuming, this also makes you see the results in a staggered manner.

The thing is that it is very important for an online entrepreneur such as yourself to use social marketing tools as you need to be able to generate a lot of relevant traffic to your site. In fact today, it is not enough that you do well in your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy and you have to use other methods in order to make your site visible to as many people as possible. By using a good social media traffic marketing tool, you will be able to get the results that you want for your site.

However, you don't need to worry these days as there are a lot of social media tools that are created so that you can link your WordPress blog to your Facebook or Twitter account. Social marketing tools allow you to automatically update your social networking site without the need for you to log in daily. These tools are very effective in drawing people to your blog site. With the WordPress social media traffic plugin, you only need to install it and it will do the work for you automatically. On the other hand, this particular program allows you to do so much more as it does not only allow you to post updated links on your Facebook and Twitter accounts but it also allows you to post customized messages for your clients to read. Social Media Tools allow you to create professionally made messages to keep your clients updated with what's new with your site. Since everything is automated with this particular tool, all you need to do is to sit back and relax and enjoy the traffic that your site receives.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6733399

Social Media Marketing Tip: Prospecting Tool to Get MORE Traffic to Your Biz

Understanding Social Media Websites

Social media websites are currently extremely popular. Social media is about you, the user of the website, and what you want to see. The traffic which comes from the websites is of the highest quality available online as the website visitors are genuinely interested in reading the content on the pages.

SM traffic is different from most normal internet traffic, users have not searched for anything, in this case they are actually looking for something to read or entertain themselves with. The traffic is in many cases, viral, users commonly discover interesting content and submit it to social media sites where it can become extremely popular overnight.

Types of Social media traffic:

• Recommendation sites: Digg, Slashdot, Reddit, Mixx, and many others. These sites allow users to submit content to the website, and if other users like it, they will vote it "up", thus placing it higher in a rank of the most popular websites. Sometimes the sheer volume of users who will visit the site will result in the server crashing, in many cases, if a page reaches the #1 spot on a Recommendation site, it can receive up to 100,000 unique visitors in a very short period of time.
• Social Bookmarking: Delicious, StumbleUpon, Clipmarks. Social Bookmarking is virtually the same thing as simply saving a website as a bookmark in your browser, with the exception that other users see your bookmarks and you can compare how many other people have bookmarked that page as well.
• Social Networking: Facebook, MySpace, Friendster. Social networking websites are based around connecting with friends online and sharing media through the websites. These pages offer the deepest level of customization for the users as they are allowed to modify their profiles on a very personal level and include only their network of friends they choose.

If you can manage to get people interested to the point where they will submit your website to one of the following social media sites, you will have virtually automated traffic. If your website goes viral, you best have a good host as it could receive millions of visits in a very short period of time.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3296782

Epic Traffic Systems - Using Social Media Traffic

Everyone knows how important social media has become to marketers. You can't pick up a newspaper these days or check in on the latest Digg stories without seeing someone touting the overthrow of the entire Internet by Facebook or Twitter or YouTube.

Well, there's some truth to what the pundits are saying. Social has captured the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of users. Smart marketers see this as a chance for them to also capture the wallets of all these users. But, the question that eludes most would-be social marketers is this...

How Can You Capture Social Media Traffic In A Way That Makes Sense To Your Schedule And Budget?

I'm so glad you asked dear reader, because that's exactly what we are going to explore right here. The answer, at least the short version of it, is that you need to automate your social marketing. There's just no way that you have the time to sit around and tweet or post Facebook updates, upload hours of video to YouTube and all the social video sharing sites, bookmark your links, and so on and so on.

You'd go broke and blind trying to get the word out about your latest post or product offering doing it this way by yourself, and there's just no way to make social media make sense if you have to put a real live person on the task. It makes even less sense if you have to hire a whole TEAM of people to do make it happen.

But, never fear, there is a solution, an automated one and it can overcome the challenges presented above. In particular, Module 2 of the Epic Traffic Systems program is all about automatically generating social media traffic.

In this module, Joey Smith, co-creator of ETS, demystifies and simplifies using this form of media for massive FREE traffic.

You'll learn the secrets of using Facebook, YouTube, Social Bookmarking and Twitter for traffic and profits.

Learn why Google decided to turn search on its ear by leveraging Twitter's real-time database. You'll see first hand and in real time people discussing issues and problems and how to leverage that information for profits and traffic.

Better yet, this can all be automated traffic generation so you don't have to waste hours of time. Joey shows you how.

Looking for traffic automation software? Pay Per Click? Try Pay Per Tweet. Better yet, in this system, you'll receive automated niche-finding software and automated tweeting software like you've never seen before.

What's Included In ETS Social Media Automation?

This module also covers:

- The "Infamous" Twitter Cash Method

- Facebook Cash and Paid Ad Secrets

- Bookmarketing and Social Link Building on Auto-Pilot

- Underground Social Traffic Tactics

If you want Epic free traffic without having to pay for it, social is the way to go, and in this system Joey shows you exaclty how to get where you want to be...FAST.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4322149

Use Social Media Tools To Improve The Traffic In Your Site

These days, a lot of people use Facebook and Twitter to name a few to keep updated with their peers and colleagues. Moreover, this has also been a great avenue where online entrepreneurs can market their products as well as services to their clients. In fact, social networking sites are now being used in order for you to generate the traffic to your site. What is great about social networking site as a great marketing strategy is that you can link it to your WordPress blog by using a WordPress social media traffic plugin. Before, updating your blogs on your Facebook or Twitter can be a difficult task the fact that you need to go online daily and post the links of your site which can take up a lot of time and effort in your part. Aside from time consuming, this also makes you see the results in a staggered manner.

The thing is that it is very important for an online entrepreneur such as yourself to use social marketing tools as you need to be able to generate a lot of relevant traffic to your site. In fact today, it is not enough that you do well in your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy and you have to use other methods in order to make your site visible to as many people as possible. By using a good social media traffic marketing tool, you will be able to get the results that you want for your site.

However, you don't need to worry these days as there are a lot of social media tools that are created so that you can link your WordPress blog to your Facebook or Twitter account. Social marketing tools allow you to automatically update your social networking site without the need for you to log in daily. These tools are very effective in drawing people to your blog site. With the WordPress social media traffic plugin, you only need to install it and it will do the work for you automatically. On the other hand, this particular program allows you to do so much more as it does not only allow you to post updated links on your Facebook and Twitter accounts but it also allows you to post customized messages for your clients to read. Social Media Tools allow you to create professionally made messages to keep your clients updated with what's new with your site. Since everything is automated with this particular tool, all you need to do is to sit back and relax and enjoy the traffic that your site receives.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6733399

How To Rapidly Become a Social Media Influencer On Twitter and Quickly Grow Traffic

Why You Shouldn't Focus Your Efforts On Social Media Traffic

Yes, you've heard all those gurus saying that anybody who is anybody is using social media to drive traffic to your site and make tons of money. Bloggers that focus on building a huge following use social media primarily to attract traffic to their site, build their lists, and make their millions. If you aren't leveraging traffic from Digg and Reddit, then you might as well give up. Right?

Wrong.

First of all, lets discuss some sales terms. A lead is somebody who is somewhat interested in your product. A cold lead is somebody who doesn't even know your product exists. A warm lead has some kin of desire for your product. A hot lead is somebody who has a desire, has already taken their money out of their pocket, and wants to buy something.

Obviously, if you are selling stuff online, the warmer the lead, the better. This is true in all sales. Nobody wants to cold call people and try to persuade them first that they have a need and second that they should do something about it, and third that they should buy the product from you. This takes a lot of time, involves a lot of rejection, and won't generate much sales.

Depending on your sales model, though, and how long your sales funnel is, you might have no choice but to start out with cold leads. This is generally what advertising does. It presents your message to as many cold leads as possible, and identifies the warm ones among them. The warm ones then contact you, and find out about your product. These people are a lot easier to sell to.

In the world of online marketing, any lead that comes to your website from a search engine is a warm lead. Anybody that comes from a paid ad is going to be an even warmer lead.

But what about people that come from social media? Compared to search engine traffic, these people are pretty cold. When they've seen your information on the various social media sites, they weren't in the problem solving mind set. Think about this for a minute. Most people visit those sites for entertainment. It's like watching TV. When you sit down to watch TV at night, are you hoping to see an ad that will solve a problem you've got? Probably not.

If you've got a problem you need solved, or a product you want to buy, you'll likely crack open the phone book.

Does that mean that people don't sell anything from TV ads? Certainly not. There are tons of infomercial precisely because they make money. But those are big productions. They are thirty minutes long, and are designed to get as many viewers as possible, and convert a small percentage of them.

But think about this. At most, people have a couple hundred channels on cable. Of those, there's probably only twenty channels they watch regularly. So when they come across an infomercial, it's really only competing against those other twenty channels for your attention.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7302647

7 Social Media Traffic Tips

Social media networking today is the great equalizer that allows small businesses to battle it out with the big corporations. Using just a few routine tactics will allow the small business to gain a greater Web presence, build a following, and develop relationships within their niche communities.

Here a few tips to try out and add to your social media arsenal:

1. Twitter - Regularly Tweet important company announcements and links to information that could be useful for your community.

2. Facebook - Create a company page last and continue to make gradual enhancements to it.

3. StumbleUpon - Create an account and develop a collection of your favorite pages.

4. Connected to SU.PR which will tremendously helped you monitor the response levels to the information you share.

5. Regularly post relevant blog content for your company. Wordpress is the best.

6. Use a service such as OnlyWire to bookmark your posting to over twenty five bookmarking and social media web sites.

7. Use blog roll services to automatically post links to your new content. These can automatically update your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and many other social media sites.

Many if not all of the above strategies will help boost your Web presence, and do so almost automatically. All you will have to do is spend the time opening accounts with the book marking and social media sites, write keyword optimized blog postings, and the rest will be done for you.

Think about it, with one posting you can obtain twenty five to fifty backlinks to your blog or web site, which in turn will give you a boost in traffic and readership, along with page ranking.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3378311

2 Landing Page Secrets For Optimizing Social Media Traffic

If you use social media sites (like Digg, MySpace and Squidoo) the right way, you can bring in a stampede of highly targeted traffic to your site. But what happens when this traffic arrives on your landing page? If you're like a lot of marketers, this is where your system breaks down.

You see, the social marketing experts have told you plenty of information about how to use the social media sites. They've shared with you their secrets of creating compelling profile pages, building a big "friends" list, networking with like-minded others, and even creating content that will be scooped up by the search engines.

But what they haven't told you is one of the most crucial pieces of the whole social media marketing puzzle. Namely, you need to create a good landing page on your site that draws your traffic in and gets them on your list.

Here are a few tips to help you do exactly that...

* If You're Linking to a Content Page, Make it Interactive

Think about it - your social networking traffic is coming from a very interactive, "social" site. So if you send this traffic to a sales page or other static page, these visitors are going to hit the "back" button faster than you can say, "what happened?"

Instead, you should link to a blog with content related to whatever content your visitors were just reading. Make it provocative... and encourage comments.

* If You're Linking to a Squeeze Page, Make it Compelling

You can't just put a note that says "sign up for my free newsletter"... and expect that people will sign up for your free newsletter. Instead, you need to give them a compelling reason to do so. And better yet, you need to give them a reason why they should do so right now.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1646134

Social Media (Blog Traffic Secret #3 of 7)

Social Media Traffic Can Help Even the World's Worst Sites

Sure everyone likes to read good content and your website should be no different. But what good is great content if there is no one there to read it? None. However, thanks to social networking sites and social bookmarking, the one thing you can do with your great content is to share it with other people in a hurry.

This is a complete opposite to the old "build a website and they will come" viewpoint. Now, you generate the content and instead of placing it only on your site, you can now publish it to hundreds of social sites and bookmarking engines so that other people can see it where they visit, not where you want them to visit.

It is a manner of "word of mouth" advertising at its best. The process is simple. Just sign up for your favorite social sites and post content to them. Some of the best places to add your content to are Squidoo, Facebook, and Hubpages.

After you have added content to these sites you can bookmark them in your favorite bookmarking sites, such as Digg, Delicious, or StumbelUpon.

The better your content, the more people who are going to look at it on those sites. Those sites are already getting tens of thousands of hits daily. This means that your content is getting in front of thousands of potential readers every day. How many hits is your site getting? Likely none if your pretty new.

So stop trying to bring traffic to your content and start bringing your content to where the traffic is. These sites are free, highly rated by Google, and have no shortage of avid readers. Your best option is to put great content for them to read there and entice them to come by your own site if they liked what you had to say.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2737270

Social Media Traffic Vs Search Traffic

Stop Focusing On SEO And Google Will Chase You!

It's important to understand the significant difference between traffic from the search engines and traffic from Social Media sources. Once you do, it will transform the focus of your marketing.

Search traffic comes to your website with interest, perhaps, but generally without any prior relationship to your business.

Of course I'm not talking about people who search for your business name - those people know you, or have been exposed to you by word of mouth, print etc.

By search traffic, I draw attention to the audience of new people who find you through the search engines - and I want to compare them to the audience of new people who may find you through Social Media Channels.

People who find you through organic search, or worse, through paid Google Ads, are starting a relationship with you from a cold start.

On the other hand, if people find you through Social Media, it is because one of their friends or family mentioned you online. When traffic lands on your site from a social media source, odds are much better that this person was referred to you through online word-of-mouth.

Referral From A Trusted Source

Word-of-Mouth marketing has always been recognized as The King for building sales. For this reason, web design for Fishing Lodges should focus on a strong component of user-generated Social Media content that re-featured in a search engine friendly blog format, and emailed to opt-in subscribers.

The Economics of Facebook Marketing

With about 30% of the US population on Facebook, we can assume that about 150 of our 500 guests will have an account on Facebook. Studies show that the average Facebook user has 120 friends.

150 people x 120 friends each = 18,000 people who could possibly receive a direct notification about the fishing trip pictures that your guests posted on Facebook!

Not just people, but 18,000 friends and family... cousins and co-workers who are sharing a fun moment with someone they know and like and trust.

Some readers may resist these numbers and the quality of the leads that may be generated by pointing to the general demographics of the people who are using Facebook - it is generally a younger audience than those who are driving to Canada and paying for the trip!

Details show that just 30% of the audience on Facebook is 35 years or older. 30% of 18,000 = 5,400 friends, family and co-workers who might be in the demographics our Fishing Lodge owner caters too.

Imagine our Fishing Lodge is open for 27 weeks of the year. Each week, happy guests go home and excited new vacationers arrive. Each week, guests post pictures to Facebook. If we take our number of 5,400 from above and divide by 27 weeks, we find a potential to generate 200 word-of-mouth referrals to friends, family and co-workers of your current guests - who are 35 or older - each week!

What would happen if the guests to a hypothetical fishing lodge were to post pictures of their fishing trip to the fishing lodge business page on Facebook? For example sake, let us make up a (beautiful, remote, American Plan) Fishing Lodge in Canada that will serve 500 people through a typical fishing and hunting season, mid May until end of November.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5686803

Why You Shouldn't Focus Your Efforts On Social Media Traffic

Yes, you've heard all those gurus saying that anybody who is anybody is using social media to drive traffic to your site and make tons of money. Bloggers that focus on building a huge following use social media primarily to attract traffic to their site, build their lists, and make their millions. If you aren't leveraging traffic from Digg and Reddit, then you might as well give up. Right?

Wrong.

First of all, lets discuss some sales terms. A lead is somebody who is somewhat interested in your product. A cold lead is somebody who doesn't even know your product exists. A warm lead has some kin of desire for your product. A hot lead is somebody who has a desire, has already taken their money out of their pocket, and wants to buy something.

Obviously, if you are selling stuff online, the warmer the lead, the better. This is true in all sales. Nobody wants to cold call people and try to persuade them first that they have a need and second that they should do something about it, and third that they should buy the product from you. This takes a lot of time, involves a lot of rejection, and won't generate much sales.

Depending on your sales model, though, and how long your sales funnel is, you might have no choice but to start out with cold leads. This is generally what advertising does. It presents your message to as many cold leads as possible, and identifies the warm ones among them. The warm ones then contact you, and find out about your product. These people are a lot easier to sell to.

In the world of online marketing, any lead that comes to your website from a search engine is a warm lead. Anybody that comes from a paid ad is going to be an even warmer lead.

But what about people that come from social media? Compared to search engine traffic, these people are pretty cold. When they've seen your information on the various social media sites, they weren't in the problem solving mind set. Think about this for a minute. Most people visit those sites for entertainment. It's like watching TV. When you sit down to watch TV at night, are you hoping to see an ad that will solve a problem you've got? Probably not.

If you've got a problem you need solved, or a product you want to buy, you'll likely crack open the phone book.

Does that mean that people don't sell anything from TV ads? Certainly not. There are tons of infomercial precisely because they make money. But those are big productions. They are thirty minutes long, and are designed to get as many viewers as possible, and convert a small percentage of them.

But think about this. At most, people have a couple hundred channels on cable. Of those, there's probably only twenty channels they watch regularly. So when they come across an infomercial, it's really only competing against those other twenty channels for your attention.

Compare this to somebody coming across your tweet or Facebook page. There's literally billions of other pages they could go to. This makes it much less likely they are going to be convinced by your message to come and buy your product. Sure, it might get you some traffic, and they might sign up for your email list if you've got something juicy to give them in exchange from their email address, but will they ever buy anything?

For all the time people spend getting Twitter and other free traffic, don't you think you'd be much better off finding the warm leads, rather than trying to convert a bunch of cold leads?

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7302647

Social Media Examiner - Mike Stelzner How to Start a Blog, Drive Traffic, and Monetize Social Media

Social Media Strategy - What Are You Doing With Social Media Traffic?

The very successful Paul Carr fluently pointed out last week that while he may be well placed as a writer in the world of internet marketing and among the SEO, he's actually nobody when taken out of this comfort zone. Robert Scoble is very popular among the technical community all over the world but the fact remains that who attracts more traffic at the end of the day.

Numerous graphs and studies show that I have been more successful in attracting traffic over the last few months. There are numerous graphs and charts available to find the traffic, most however, are not reliable in measuring the exact number of hits. I can safely say that the data is inaccurate because of the two available graphs with me from Google analytic and compete. The numbers hugely differ in the above cases; at least what I hundred percent believe is that competing has been showing regular growth in my visitors. The trend predicted them is therefore hundred percent perfect.

I can hundred percent say that Scoble's traffic has been decreasing at a very steady pace. I can confirm this because of his belief in friendfeed, which is a social media networking. Well, Scoble may be interested in traffic concentrating on others website and not his. Diversion of traffic may not be such an issue with Scoble but I am sure that this makes a whole lot of difference to you.

Traffic is just a tool in measuring the traffic and effectiveness of social media but it is extremely important!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2787096

Social Media Traffic

How you can penetrate the hottest markets for quality traffic, without spending more than 10 minutes a day managing accounts! The top social media networks that play a critical role in generating targeted traffic to your site! How to automate your social media marketing so you can focus on other aspects of your business!

Social marketing is a phenomenon that is spreading like wildfire, and it's not surprising. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter have millions of active users, and it's very difficult to ignore such an immense source of traffic.

Too many people go about it all wrong, and they end up ruining their reputations, or they get banned and lose all of the progress they have made. There's no sense spending months building a following and a reputation if you're just going to get banned and lose it all. In this report, I'm going to teach you some of the secrets of effective Social marketing. You're going to learn how to build a solid, profitable traffic and revenue stream by making use of the massive user bases of popular social networks, and how to maximize your profit potential.

Successful Social Marketing

One of the biggest problems with marketers who attempt to market on social networks is that they are too gung ho to make money. They end up spamming their followers to death, and soon they are either ignored or even banned. It's very important that you use social networks as they were intended if you want to make the most of your efforts. This way, you don't have to worry as much about potentially being banned, and you will also have happier followers!

Socialize

The most important thing you should do is to spend time socializing. This should be obvious, but too many social marketers skip this vital component. I know It takes a bit of time to socialize, but people aren't likely to pay Attention to you and your sales messages if they don't know you. You need to make sure you socialize with your followers, because this will help them respond to your marketing.

Think about product recommendations. Who would you trust more to recommend a product If you wanted to buy a new television, would you trust a sales person you didn't know who was getting a commission for recommending a TV to you, or would you trust a coworker you like and talk to every day? More than likely you would trust the opinion of your coworker much more than the salesperson, because you know that coworker fairly well and you believe they have your best interests at heart.

Although you can't hide the fact that the products you recommend will pay you a commission, people will still be much more likely to buy what you recommend if they trust you. You can earn their trust by socializing with them, letting them get to know you, only recommending quality products you have tested yourself, and posting useful information on a regular basis.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6784575

How to Get Social Media Traffic Flowing

You are using social media in an attempt to engage with your customers however all you have managed to do is engage with your own team and circle of friends. Yet you see all of your competitors running successful social media campaigns, thus the question is just where are you going wrong?

Perhaps the clue is in the word social. You are being social, it is just not with the right people.

There are plenty of ways to promote yourself using social media and perhaps you have tried special offers, video updates or even competitions. Yet your results were still the same, your social circle loved it, won all of the prizes and any new customers soon drifted away back to their own social circles.

If you implement this strategy, your inner circle will not really care about you and your social media strategy as most of them either helped to create it or are already doing their own version.

If you turn your social media strategy on its head and begin to provide focused benefit without expecting anything in return, strangers will soon begin to respect you as the go-to source for this information. People are tired of there always being a catch to the provision of information, remove this irritation and you will immediately become more respected. However for this to work you must do this as part of a daily routine and not as a fad or an exception.

This is a long-term strategy that will bring rewards in very quickly but most definitely not overnight.

Before you start rebuilding your social media strategy, you must ensure that you can maintain this in the long-term and that you are not following fashion blindly. Always ask yourself, if this site was to shut down tomorrow how would your strategy manage, is there an alternative site waiting in the wings?

When the AdSense market collapsed there were many marketers that got massively caught out by this because they did not take a strategic view on their growth plan. The best plan is always to learn from the mistakes of others and avoid their repetition.

With this in mind there are many social media sites out there from the top dog Facebook through the re-invented MySpace down to the more specialist ones like Foursquare. The key is not to focus on just one of these, rather have traffic following you from feeder sites to your central social media hub.

Start be defining where you think the majority of your potential customer base hangs out, is this the same place as your current customers or are there significant pockets elsewhere. At each of these sites compare the potential for multi-media presentation as you are looking for a place to set up your base camp. This does not necessarily have to be where most of your current customers are at the moment. Actually getting these people to take action and travel to another site is the first step in the customer engagement process, do not let your customers grow complacent.

With your base camp setup, now it is time to send out your content seeds, you will need differing media formats depending upon the preferences of each sites users. You will already be aware of this as during the research phase you made notes on the most common media updates used on each site. Use Google Alerts and press releases to stay abreast of your markets developments and of course mix this up with non promotional information about your company.

If you repeat this on a daily basis you will soon have the most intelligent and up to date customers in the market. Then when someone asks how do they know so much and they reply because you told them, you know your system is working.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5350991

Social Media Marketing Explained

Search Engine Traffic to Social Media Traffic - 2 Reasons Why Affiliates Should Diversify

Many people are working hard to get traffic from search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Traffic from search engines are of top quality, which means that the traffic is highly targeted and is the most likely to convert and earn commissions for affiliates. In this affiliate marketing tips article, we are going to look at 3 major reasons why an affiliate should not depend on search engine traffic alone and should diversify into leveraging social media when building traffic for their affiliate sites.

Search Engine Algorithms Change Frequently

Top search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN change their algorithms frequently so that they can provide the most relevant results to their users. They are also performing these changes frequently so that the public cannot game their system. With that being said, your affiliate site can disappear from the first few pages of your targeted search term overnight even if you are in position number 1 for the search term the night before.

No one knows exactly how search engines rank sites even though there are a lot of theories and speculations out there. Also, search engines can make decisions whether to ban certain scripts or sites with certain criteria within a few hours. If your affiliate marketing business is totally dependent search engine traffic, you should seriously consider other sources of traffic because a slight change in the algorithms might push your out of business tomorrow.

Build Authority Status with Social Media

I am sure there will be some affiliates reading this that disclaims what am I about to say. Well, when affiliates talk about social media traffic, they think of spikes from the StumbleUpon rush or the Digg effect that will only force servers to go down. This is a mindset that is completely wrong. Building traffic for affiliate sites using social media is more than just creating fancy contents such as a top 10 list that will give you the spikes in traffic.

Social media is all about participation. There are a lot of news voting sites, forums and social networking sites that are dedicated to certain niches only. When you are being helpful on these sites, people will turn to you and will not mind being directed to your affiliate site. These people will come to your site over and over again, not because your site frequently experience the Digg effect, but because they trust what you recommend (even via an affiliate link) and see you as an expert in your niche.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1640399

Practical Social Marketing Tips - How to Repurpose Your Articles For Waves of Social Media Traffic

Do you know how to repurpose your articles for waves and waves of social media and social marketing traffic? Read on to get the tips and tools.

Can you get traffic from Social Marketing? The answer is not only a resounding YES, I would even change the question to "In how many ways can you get traffic from Social Marketing and Social Media?"

Repurposing Your Articles for Social Marketing Traffic

Their are so many ways to repurpose, reuse and repackage your articles for lots more traffic. Let.s take a closer look at how to leverage some of the Social Marketing Tools for more traffic from your articles. We'll look at Twitter, Facebook, Your Blog and YouTube. While there are many more Social Marketing tools, let's begin with these four.

Twitter - When a new article is published on one of the article directories or on your web site, announce it on Twitter. But don't just stop there. Follow up by quoting your article with a link to read the entire piece. Ask a question and then direct them to your article for the answer. Refer to your article when answering questions asked by other users. You can get so much more leverage out of each article this way.

Facebook - You can announce new articles on both your regular Facebook page and on your Facebook Fan Pages. Use quotes from your article with links to the full piece. You can even upload your entire article as well. Most people do not publish any content of depth on their Facebook and this is another way you can stand out from the crowd.

Your Blog - This is a great way to keep those who are already on your list coming back for more. Don't make the mistake of assuming that just because they have been to your blog once they are going to automatically come back. You need to invite them. You can post your entire article. You can use the "read more" tag to post part of your article that leads to another page with the full article. You can create a blog series out of sections or tips within your article.

YouTube - YouTube currently gets twice the traffic of Google. Why wouldn't you do this? Take points from your article and create Power Point slides. Using Camtasia or Cam Studio create screen captures of your slides and talk your prospect through the points.

While these are powerful strategies, we have really just skimmed the surface of how to leverage Social Marketing for more traffic.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3147287

Social Media Strategy - What Are You Doing With Social Media Traffic?

The very successful Paul Carr fluently pointed out last week that while he may be well placed as a writer in the world of internet marketing and among the SEO, he's actually nobody when taken out of this comfort zone. Robert Scoble is very popular among the technical community all over the world but the fact remains that who attracts more traffic at the end of the day.

Numerous graphs and studies show that I have been more successful in attracting traffic over the last few months. There are numerous graphs and charts available to find the traffic, most however, are not reliable in measuring the exact number of hits. I can safely say that the data is inaccurate because of the two available graphs with me from Google analytic and compete. The numbers hugely differ in the above cases; at least what I hundred percent believe is that competing has been showing regular growth in my visitors. The trend predicted them is therefore hundred percent perfect.

I can hundred percent say that Scoble's traffic has been decreasing at a very steady pace. I can confirm this because of his belief in friendfeed, which is a social media networking. Well, Scoble may be interested in traffic concentrating on others website and not his. Diversion of traffic may not be such an issue with Scoble but I am sure that this makes a whole lot of difference to you.

Traffic is just a tool in measuring the traffic and effectiveness of social media but it is extremely important!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2787096

What's YOUR Social Media Marketing Strategy?

Social Media Traffic Blueprint From Maria Andros

Social Media Traffic Generation With Twitter - Why Panhandlers Get Better ROI

1. So, what's the point of social media traffic generation?

From marketing perspective, Twitter = Social Media Traffic Generation Heaven = List Building, plain and simple. It's been said that "The money is in the list". I tell you that the money is actually in YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THAT LIST.

Done properly, your Twitter follower list can potentially be even more responsive than your email list. What a dream of every marketer - to have people actually listen to what you have to say!

2. Why is it so difficult to be heard on Twitter?

Obviously, there is the right and the wrong way to go about using it for your social media traffic generation. Here are some of the direct messages I get. To be more precise, most of the direct messages sound like that:

"RIDE THE WAVE OF SUCCESS...BE YOUR OWN BOSS Link"

"Hi there and thanks 4 following my tweets.I guess you will find way to use 1-3K$ on Autopilot Link"

"Learn how to make money online with cell phones-coaching from a pro-less than $25! Link"

"Do take a sec to look at my Web Programming articles. Click on a few links while you're there Link."

No wonder it's hard to be heard above all that noise! But if you think about, there is an opportunity there for you to stand out. Value without sales is a hot commodity on Twitter. Give without asking for anything in return is the key ingredient to your social media traffic generation.

Learn that and you will go from Twitter underdog to wonderdog in no time.

3. Twitter is very time-consuming.

It absolutely can be. Here's how I go about it. First, you need a plan. My plan is to spend about an hour per day, spread out in 15-20 minute increments.

Daily Process For My Twitter Account:

-Read your @mentions and reply to all of them.
-Post a favorite quotation, recent news link, or just basic info (this can be from online or offline resources)
-Scan your own timeline & look for conversations to jump into.
-Go to Twitter search, search for topics of interest to you, and get into a few conversations there as well. While you're there, go ahead and search for your own name and/or company name to see if anyone is talking about you
-Check your direct messages (DMs) and reply to them as well.
-Repeat this at least 3 times a day.

Use services to automate some of the tedious Twitter tasks! Obviously, there is a lot more to the Twitter traffic generation process than just following people.

You need to know how to engage, what to say, when and how to sell. Social media traffic generation - it's not difficult...once you know what you are doing.

Now go ahead and click on the link below to learn more about traffic generations for your website.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4615918