How To Make Money Online Working From Home

If anyone has doubted the power of Social Media Sites or been wondering what the fuss was all about, then the above figures speak for themselves.

This article proposes to address the 3 most important questions that will enable any marketer fully tap into the power of Social Media Traffic and start seeing some real traffic on their site quickly; these are:

(i) What are Social Media Websites? (ii), Why are they so important and
(iii) How do we make our online presence felt on these sites?

1. What are Social Media Websites?

These are sites whose content are mainly or solely generated by users who gather to share information,ideas and resources in areas of common interest.

For this reason they are usually described as Web 2.0 websites meaning the web at a higher level of interactivity through user-content-generation and collaboration.

These websites which are free to join usually fall into two categories namely Social Networking and Social Bookmarking.

Social Networking sites include Online Communities like Facebook, Myspace, Flixster.com, Linkedin, eBay, Yahoo 360, Online Forums like Google Groups, Yahoo Groups and Blog websites like Twitter and Squidoo.

Social Bookmarking sites include sites like Digg, Stumbleupon, Tecnorati and Delicious. They also include video sharing sites like Youtube, that combine both Social Bookmarking and Social Networking functionalities.

2. Why are Social Media Websites so important?

They are not only very important today but are poised to overtake search engines in popularity in the not too distant future. This is because delivery of content to users is what drives the internet and users today are becoming increasingly aware of their power to shape and drive that content themselves (more like taking their destiny into their own hands). It is no wonder that in the month of January 2009 alone, over 150 million people visited the top 5 Social Media websites.

Up till recently Search Engines have been the sole determinants of what content is relevant using special algorithms they develop and constantly evolve.

With Web 2.0, relevant content is shaped and driven by the people themselves through recommending what they like to others or by casting votes for them.

The higher the votes, the more relevant the content – a somewhat democratic system bound to be more reliable after allowing for potential abuses to the system.

A typical example is at Digg.com, the Social Bookmarking site where millions of users get to submit and decide the top stories of the day rather than have some newspaper editor decide for them.

Therefore the idea is that most people, given the choice, are more likely to check out something a friend finds helpful and recommends rather than to take the more laborious route of sifting through tons of web pages served up by a Search Engine hoping to find what they want.

Social Media Networking therefore replays what we do in everyday life where we meet other people, form relationships, build trust and share useful information with each other. This happens all the time in our social gatherings like parties, clubs, re-unions etc. Web 2.0 simply provides us another avenue for Social gathering and networking; which is online.

Imagine what it will do for your business once you are able to successfully re-direct even a tiny percentage of such online traffic (like that shown in the diagram above) to your site monthly. That will be some real Social Networking Traffic!

3. So how do we tap into the power of Social Media Websites to make our online presence felt in the ‘right sort of way’ (and get our own piece of this gigantic pie)?

- Social Networking Sites

The first thing to note is that Social Networking Sites like real life social situations do not encourage overt marketing, with the exception of Squidoo that permits outright selling.

So the first thing to do after we join for free is to create an interesting profile to introduce ourselves and what we do; usually the type of information that kicks off a conversation in real life.

We then proceed to gradually build trust by regularly sharing useful information and resources that do not self-promote. Occaisionally, we might chip in the odd happening in our personal lives we think others may find interesting (don’t overdo this and be careful not to be dull).

Once we get through this ice breaking stage then we can proceed to make recommendations that we have an interest in; perhaps on a ratio of 1 offer out of every 5 posts. This ratio is important because in real life we will not be bombarding our friends with offers.

Our offers should made indirectly in the form of recommendations such as ‘do you know xyz product or service can do so and so, check it out’. Or we can simply recommend a webinar that has our affiliate link embedded. That way we provide free valuable information which may lead to a sale (webinars are usually part of a build up to a product launch).

We should also remember that we had earlier written an interesting profile about ourself, hobbies, interests, what we do and included a link to our website. This will continue to get views and click backs to our website the more we post useful content for people to read. This is because the more people find our posts useful, the more interest they develop in us and want to learn more about us. Where else to do this than by checking our profile, clicking on our link and landing on our website. This technique works all the time to drive plenty of Social Network Traffic to your site even when you do not self-promote.

Also, whenever we write articles, press releases and blog posts, we should also provide links to them on the Social Networks for others to check them out and share with their friends. Others will be able to share your content so long as the social media buttons for sharing is available on any site hosting your content.

My first Press Release which went live at 1 am U.K was all over Twitter, blogging websites all over the net and ofcourse Google by the time I woke up in the morning to check Google for it. That single press release with over 2000 views and 120 click through to date and still going strong continues to be a good source of traffic to this site. Thanks to Social media leveraging that was one of the best $19.95 I ever spent.

So long as our content is useful and interesting, people in the Social Networks will grab it and spread it like a virus even before we can blink an eye lid. Now that’s massive Free Web Site Traffic.

Specifially, on Community Sites like Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin and others, we should make sure we join groups and be very active in them. For example, we should take part in discussions, start our own discussions and even form our own groups. These Social activities put together will provide plenty networking opportunities that will constantly drive free targeted traffic back to our sites.

- Social Bookmarking Sites

Using Social Bookmarking sites is like having our favourites folder in internet explorer or our bookmarks folder in firefox available for others to view online.

When we join Social Bookmarking Sites, we are given an account where we store our list of favourite web pages; this list is available or shared for other members to see what we like – a form of indirect recommendation of web pages to others.

Traffic from these Web 2.0 sites come in 3 different ways:

The first is through bookmarking and sharing useful web content which will encourage people to have a look at our profile which will include a link back to our site. To maximise the traffic pulling potential of our bookmarks you need to announce them using interesting titles and descriptions of the content we bookmark.

So long as our posts are useful and interesting, we can still generate a lot of traffic back to our site in this way even though we are only bookmarking other people’s content. This is more so when our bookmark makes the home page of the bookmarking site due to it’s popularity with other users thereby getting far more views.

Secondly, we should endeavour to comment on other people’s post; in so doing we can piggy-back on popular posts and glean off some of the traffic they generate especially when they make the home page.

Thirdly, many social bookmarking sites frown upon bookmarking personal content and one is likely to get banned if we are found bookmarking our own content..

The easiest way round this is to write interesting articles with catchy titles and encourage site visitors to bookmark them using social bookmark buttons on our site. Another method is to use Press Release Distribution Services whose content normally find their way into the Social Networks as I earlier demonstrated.

There are blackhat Social Bookmarking techniques out there but this site does not recommend any for the obvious reasons stated above. The choice is however entirely yours.

Altogether, Social Bookmarking is a very effective way of building up quality backlinks to drive up your search engines rankings as well as to bring in plenty of free direct web site traffic.

…if you have not already done so, you can learn more by joining our eBook Gift Club to Claim your FREE copy of “How to Bookmark for FREE TRAFFIC!” …as well as other Special Gifts. Just use the form below to Sign Up!
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Always To Your Success.

Stephen Shitta-Bey
http://www.4Real.biz/blog