May 18

10 Bookmarking Sites for News Stories

Beginner's Track, Social Media Classroom 7 Comments »

image credit to relativity corp

Social bookmarking sites are extremely popular, thanks to their ability to zap your site with hundreds of new visitors. The rush that comes from seeing that spike of short-lived traffic can be addictive, but how do you ensure that you get a continuous stream of that kind of traffic? The best method is to submit news stories to social bookmarking sites.  Here are 10 that I think are well worth submitting to.

  1. Slashdot. This site is mainly for bookmarking technical posts and sites, so if you run one, make sure your posts are submitted to this site.
  2. Digg. No news bookmarking list would be complete without Digg. Here you can submit news on many topics and if it’s good and appeals to the users (mostly college age males), you will see a steep increase in traffic.
  3. I am bored. Like the title says, this is for those who are bored and surfing the net. While regular news won’t make it onto the list, if you have something weird and wonderful, it could be the perfect fit.
  4. Propeller. If you have a breaking news story, particularly in the area of tech, you can bookmark it here.
  5. Newsvine. Like the name says, this is a good place to spread the news that you are sharing. Users can set up a blog on the site and this offers even more exposure for your links and business.
  6. Newscloud. This social bookmarking site works in a similar way as Newsvine, with blogs for each user.
  7. Hugg. For those who have a business with an environmental focus, Hugg is a news site that mainly focuses on the environment, though they do have other categories that you can submit stories to.
  8. C2NN. Here is a social bookmarking site that is hopping. The focus here is on business, environment and politics with a healthy doze of bizarre news thrown in.
  9. Now Public. If you’re going to use this site, be sure that you have some real news, since they are looking for journalistic stories by users around the world.
  10. Stirr’dup. This bookmarking site is particularly focused on politics, entertainment, news and technology. Have a story that fits? Send it in.

There are literally hundreds of social bookmarking sites out there. That doesn’t mean that you should be using them all. When you have some news, it’s a good idea to stick to just news sites, as opposed to only your niche sites. News is something that everyone can enjoy and it will help you build links, as well as gain a better reputation.

  • Share/Bookmark
Tagged with: • • • •
Nov 09

10 Ways to Expand Your Social Media Networks

Beginner's Track, Social Media 5 Comments »

Networking is only as good as the people in your network. If you have just a small handful of people with little influence, chances are there won’t be much in the way of results. While quality is good, quantity is also very important when it comes to social media. If you are struggling to build up your network, check out the following 10 methods of growing your contact list.

  1. Make yourself accessible. Make sure you have made your profile SEO friendly so people can find you easily.
  2. Find friends of friends. While you shouldn’t do this indiscriminately, you will often find many like-minded people in the contacts of each person that is following you. Make sure you do the research though, since some of those contacts might not be quality ones. Avoid spammers whenever possible!
  3. Be active. You will attract a lot more people if you are actually participating in the online conversation. Being active will also help people that you befriend decide to follow you back.
  4. Give to get. When you retweet or link to other people and help them promote their business, they are often more than willing to help you out in return. This is the essence of online networking, but it can help you gain followers, as well.
  5. Turn offline contacts into online ones. Look up people you know in real life and add them to your online networks. When you meet someone at a conference or elsewhere, ask them what their username is on Twitter or LinkedIn and be sure to add them.
  6. Interact with others. People might not notice your random tweets, but if you are messaging them, they will definitely notice. This works on any social media network, interacting and creating a conversation with others will get you noticed and you will gain followers.
  7. Promote yourself. Make sure you have links to your social media profiles everywhere you can, such as on forums, your blog and even email signatures.
  8. Actively seek out contacts. There’s no need to be spammy, but you can find your favorite entrepreneurs on your favorite social media networks, then just send them a message, letting them know you admire them. Chances are, they’ll follow back.
  9. Don’t be afraid to ask. Send those friend requests. You might be turned down, particularly if you aren’t well known, but the vast majority of people will accept you anyway.
  10. Do great things. You don’t have to save the world, or anything that big, but if you make a splash in your niche, people will start looking for you on social media. This could be giving away a great ebook, offering a sale or simply presenting some useful information on your website.

The bigger your social network, the better the publicity. You don’t have to focus on just one social site, work at getting more followers/friends on all of them and you’ll see a boost in traffic and publicity for your business.

I’d love to hear how you build your social media network, as well.

  • Share/Bookmark
Tagged with: • • • • •
Sep 15

Choosing the Right Social Media Platform

Beginner's Track 3 Comments »
Photo Credit: Liz Danzico

Photo Credit: Liz Danzico

There are hundreds of social media sites available. Some of them are here only for a short time, while others have been around for a while. Even if you narrow things down to the most popular social media sites online right now, you still have a pretty long list, so how are you supposed to know which one to use? Where would your marketing efforts be best used? No one can be active on every site, so you’ll want to select just a handful, even as few as 2 or 3, to be active on.

What should you look for in a social media platform? Here are a few tips to get you started.

Is it well-used? While getting in on the ground floor can be good, the less traffic a site receives, the less the benefit to you, the user. This creates a bit of a problem for new social media sites . . . they need the traffic to become successful, but need to be successful in order to get the traffic. Keep in mind that you want as many eyes as possible on your links, so finding social media networks that offer a large number of users is going to benefit your business more.

How relevant is it? Some social networking sites are aimed at very different groups. For example, Digg is mostly used by college age males. While it may be a great source of traffic, that traffic might not be as targeted as you like, if you are promoting, say baby products. Check out the target audience of each social networking site that you are considering before making a decision. Niche traffic is often more valuable than waves of completely unrelated traffic.

Is current content of good value? It’s no use promoting your products or site on a social media network that is best known for lousy content. Everyone will simply assume that your site is the same and it will be ignored. Stick to sites that are lauded for their high quality content, be sure to live up to those standards and you will see interest in your business. A well-designed and moderated social media network will offer the best possible option for marketing your business.

Are you comfortable with it? This is the most important question in the end. If you find a social media site awkward or confusing to use, chances are you won’t be doing enough networking there. Instead, stick to sites that you enjoy and see more benefits from consistent networking.

Choosing just a few out of the many, many social media sites out there is not an easy task. You’ll need to do a little research, check out the target audience and find out just how effective each site is before considering it. If you’re strapped for time, then opt for one of the handful of very popular sites, like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon.

  • Share/Bookmark
Tagged with: • • • • • •
Aug 18

How to Increase Your Blog Traffic

Beginner's Track, Social Media Classroom 3 Comments »

It’s rare to find a blogger who doesn’t want more traffic to their blog. However, it’s not always easy to get people to show up on your site and many bloggers get frustrated quickly when they realize that after a month or more of writing, they still only have 30 hits a day.

The thing about blogs is that there are unlimited numbers of them. You need to really stand out to ensure traffic and it is going to take some hard work if you want to be a successful blogger. Are you ready to dig in and work for your traffic? Then here are some steps to follow.

1. Start with a great topic. If you are writing about the mating habits of the Peruvian Giant Centipede, you have a limit as to how many people will read your blog. That’s not to say narrow topics aren’t good, but try to pick one that not only interests you, but plenty of other people, as well.

2. Get into the forums. By going where your readers are, you’ll be able to interact with them. You can respond to other people’s questions and if you are leaving great responses and being helpful, you can bet they will want to read more about you. Just make sure you follow the rules for dropping links to your blog.

3. Yahoo! Answers. This is a fairly underused technique, but it can actually be very effective. If you go to Yahoo! Answers, you’ll be able to offer people some quality solutions to their problems, leaving your URL as the source. Anyone who reads your answer will be able to click through, but the real value lies in getting the status of Best Answer, which means you’ll gain a backlink. The answers are also search engine friendly, so drop in a few keywords as you answer the question.

4. Register with Technorati. It’s worth registering your blog with Technorati since this makes it easily searchable. This is not the biggest search engine for blogs and the rankings there may no longer be of utmost importance, but it can still bring you some pretty decent traffic.

5. Link to others. Many bloggers make the mistake of writing to other bloggers, asking for a link. This works occasionally, but mostly it will just get you branded as a begger. A far better way to go is to link to worthy blog posts . . . you can bet the blogger will notice that you’re talking about him or her. Often, they will reciprocate.

6. Guest blog for others. Even if you just write an extra four blog posts a month and get them onto other people’s blogs, you can gain large amounts of traffic. Pick blogs that are well known, but not extremely popular for the best results. You’ll get a bio line with a link back to your website, which people will click on if you’ve written a great post.

7. Blog about what people want. If you notice that a post on Twitter tactics recieved a big boost in traffic and was bookmarked, then you might want to blog on that topic or a similar one more often.

8. Keep it real. No one wants to read something that sounds like a robot spit it out, so let your real voice shine through. If you are funny, all the better! More people read blogs because of the person behind it than for the information only, so a combination of personality and information will gain you more traffic.

9. Start article marketing. Writing articles and submitting them to top article directories such as EzineArticles can be a very powerful method of bringing in traffic. It takes some time to really start working, but if you keep at it, you’ll see great rewards.

10. Create an online presence. It’s not enough to simply blog away in your own little corner of the web. You need to get out there and be active on social networks, forums and other people’s blogs. Establish your personality online and you will have plenty of people not only reading your blog, but bookmarking it and promoting it for you.

There are many ways to build up your blog traffic, but the key to just about all of them is persistence. It takes time and hard work to build up a quality blog with plenty of readers. If you’re willing to do the time, you’ll see results.

  • Share/Bookmark
Tagged with: • • • •
preload preload preload