I was reading an interesting post today over on Marketing Pilgrim about picking the right social network. It brought up some interesting statistics that I think any Social Media Marketer needs to be paying attention to. If you have never done any Social Media Marketing then it would be a good idea to take a look as well.

I want to take a closer look at what social communities can do for an individual and business owners, and give my two cents.

I have experimented with almost every single social network and community out there. Some I really like, and some I think are pretty worthless and a waste of time. With that said, I have recieved some amount of traffic from each social site I am a part of. I was even contacted by a person (now a client) about some Reputation Management issues he was having through a less known social community that in a year I maybe have received 50 total visits. With everything said and done this client is worth about 15k a year to me. What if I decided to snub that smaller social community? I would have never met that current client, and lost out on business he has brought to me.

Have I got you thinking about social communities (even smaller ones) in a different light now? Even if they will not do much for you traffic wise, they will help you with branding, as well as your online reputation. I really do not feel that a business should limit themself to just one social community. I feel this way for the same reason I feel business owners should not snub My Space just because they have thoughts of it being a place for teenagers, or kids to hook up. There have been rock bands that have been made because of My Space.

My point here? Do not limit yourself to just one social community. Sure you can focus on a couple that you feel are a better fit for your business (and put more time and effort mostly on them) but I suggest doing everything you can to get the word out about your business - everywhere!

One last tip - Make sure you are taking the time to fill out the profiles from every one of the social networks you are a part of. People will be more willing to trust you (and believe you are who you say you are) when you have a more complete profile with pictures, website and contact information. The whole point of these communities is to connect people, so make sure they can!

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Rate Point - This is probably one of the coolest ideas for a social bookmarking/rating site that I have come across in a while. It is kind of a digg/del.icio.us rating type social site. Rate Point will allow you to bookmark and tag your favorite websites and rate them, and include comments to get feedback from other Rate Point users. The reason I am digging Rate Point even over del.icio.us is the fact that other people can rate your site and give you feedback how to improve. That is a huge benefit to this social site. (more…)

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If your business still is not a part of the My Space social network, then where have you been the last couple of years?

If you are thinking that My Space is a place just for kids to hangout and get in trouble (or a place to upload your risque photos), you might be surprised to learn that about 1/2 of My Space users are 35 or older.  Are you a little more interested now?   As business owners start to learn about the power of social communities, they are starting to embrace sites like My Space with less caution, and preconceived notions. (more…)

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With the recent leashing out of Jason Calacanis against SEO’s I thought I would add my two cents about Social Media Optimization (and SEO’s) as well.

I have no problem with calling myself an SEO, internet marketer, “someone who can help you get traffic”. I really don’t care. The honest truth of the fact is that talking to regular people on the street that ask me what I do for a living, give me a “deer in the headlight look” when I say “SEO”, which is then usually followed by; “You know, when you type in a word on a search engine and get the top results”. If some people do not like the term “SEO” I can’t help that, its just what the industry I am in has dubbed me because of what I do.

However, I do have a problem with the term SMO (Social Media Optimization) (more…)

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Why Digg could be heading to the garbage. I was going through my normal morning RSS with my bagel routine today and came across a post from Create PC on why Digg Sucks I got there from a post I saw by John Scott of V7 on the exact same topic. (more…)

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I came home to make my wife lunch (love bait ) and she was watching Tivo’d “The Today Show” and these two kids were both recently jacked by Simon in an American Idol Tryout in Seattle (Rand where your peeps at?). I guess Simon took it too far and and personally insulted the kids on their apperance calling one a Bush Baby and giving the other some Fat remarks. (more…)

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I have been thinking about something over the weekend when it comes to ranking on Google-vs-traffic. I have been in this industry long enough to know that rankings on Google for the most part can determine your businesses bottom line. I have also come to the conclusion that not ranking on Google is not a “site killer”. (more…)

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I came across this new tagging site today called Shadows and wanted to share my profile with everyone. Go ahead and register and get an account and add me if you like.

I have not played with it enough to tell you if I like it a lot or want to bag it, but for now lets give it a test run!

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I have been starting to really like Yahoo! Answers lately.  A couple posts ago I listed Yahoo! Answers as on of the sites that is useful for Social Media Marketing and traffic, but it can also be really good to help you find new tools for marketing, make connections (you normally would not) and learn some pretty cool stuff from other people.

It is fun to be able to give people really good answers and provide feedback when they are looking for it.  Especially when so many answers are crap, or people leave answers just for the “funny factor”.

What is really cool is when you are answering alot of questions you think of websites to send the people asking questions to, and most of them are sites that are yours.  But you do not do this thinking about the search engines and what the link can do for you, you are doing it because of helping the person asking the question.  That is when using Yahoo! Answers becomes really cool.  When you can promote your own stuff, but providing really good answers at the same time.  I always wonder when I am answering a question if it feels like I am being to spammy, but it all comes back to if I am providing a really good solution.  I do not think people will get mad about me sending links to myself if it can really help their problem.

I may be way off here, but I would love to hear some feedback from others if anyone has used Yahoo! Answers before. Success - Problems - Annoyances???  I would love to hear it all.

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I want to do somewhat of a follow up to a post I did a while ago discounting Social Media Optimization.  I still feel the same way about not buying into the term, and I still feel its another form of Search Engine Optimization, BUT I am now embracing the term Social Media Marketing in regards to SMO - so from now on all my posts that relate to what has been dubbed Social Media Optimization will now be in my Social Media Marketing category.

I have been doing a ton of Social Media Marketing lately for myself and clients, and have realized the power of the community of people that use them.  I get roughly 75% of my traffic from social sites, community networks, blogs and other non-search engine sites.  I realized when I started seeing a shift in the stats that Social Media Marketing is truly different from SEO, and in my opinion so much more powerful and targeted. 

You have the ability to get the most relevent information right into the hands of those looking for it.  You are not shoving it down thier face.  When doing Social Media Marketing on all my sites and clients sites I have no interest in what the search engines will be doing with the information that I am giving.  Although, there still is some SEO benefits to Social Media Marketing such as:

• Back Links
• Additional Rankings
• Multiple Rankings
• Rankings in some cases you normally would not have
• Reverse SEO strategies (if needed)
• Rankings for “reputation managment”

Here is my list of top Social Media Marketing sites any internet marketer needs to be taking advantage of:

• Del.icio.us
• Reddit
• Digg (If your stories are worthy of it, its ok to digg them yourself, but don’t abuse)
• Flickr (photos, but still can help you get great traffic)
• StumbleUpon
• Technorati
• Feedburner (if you are new to Social Media Marketing this site alone will give you a good start!)
• LinkedIn
• ZoomInfo
• Wikipedia
• NewsVine
• Furl
• Yahoo! 360
• Bloglines
• BlinkList
• Squidoo
• MySpace
• Yahoo! Answers

These are a few of the ones I use, and I am sure that I am not taking full advantage of all of them even at this point so I would love to hear some success stories others have had with these Social Media Marketing sites.  Also I would love to hear any insights of things that you have done that have worked well when it comes to SMM.  Again, this puts the final stamp on my feelings of SMO and will no longer be referring to it as such - from now on its all Social Media Marketing!

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