Recently I discovered an expert, Don Crowther, whose specialty is social media and how to make money for your business by using social media marketing.
Two Types of Social Media
First he explained about two types of social media:
Social media that makes you money
Social media that only makes you friends
He continued explaining some of the social media statistics, as well as the different types of social media users and how to attract them.
Keeping a clear division between the social media you use just for friendships and what you do to build business relationships to make money is absolutely critical.
Making money from social media requires a much more strategic approach which he explains very well in his videos. This goes way beyond just setting up a business page in Facebook. This is about what type of content to produce and where to put it. He also covers when and how to ask for money, when and how to give content and when and how to be personal.
Your social media efforts need to add value. Your social media engagement must portray you as an expert in your business and a trusted source of information.
The big lesson I received from watching the video was that the quality of your posts on social media platforms directly relates to the quality of your audience and that will create a following of people more likely to buy from you.
For a powerful social media tool that provides guidelines to identifying your social media marketinggoals and objectives, shares tactics for sharing content on top social media tools, strategies for monitoring and measuring and time estimates, download the free social media strategy template!
Considering all the social media tools available today, social bookmarking has probably been around the longest. Initially I only had preference for one social bookmarking tool and I mostly used it to bookmark websites of special interest to me, to help me to find them easily, as well as to share good information.
Benefits of Social Bookmarking
My perception of social bookmarking has now changed completely. I have learned that social bookmarking can give amazing backlinks back to my products and services. It will also increase the number of visitors to my blog. HOW? By submitting all your own blog posts and product sales pages to several social bookmarking sites. Let me share with you 4 social bookmarking tips.
1. Make Social Bookmarking part of your strategy
In order to use social bookmarking as an effective social media tool, you need to make it part of your social media strategy. If you don’t have a social media strategy, click here for a free strategy template.
2. Make Social Bookmarking a system
Next you need to develop your own social bookmarking system that you use consistently to produce favorable long term results.
3. Do Social Bookmarking with Only Wire
Not only can you develop a system for social bookmarking, but you can also automate the whole process with Onlywire. Onlywire is an automated content and bookmark distribution tool. With Onlywire you can auto-submit any information to over 30 social networking sites (including your favorite social bookmarking sites) at once. I am a member who pays $2.99 per month for this service. Now that it has become part of my social bookmarking system, I cannot imagine being without this tool again.
4. Automate Social Bookmarking
Now that you know what automation tool to use, it is time to get started. Here are the steps to follow:
Open Mozilla Firefox (works better with Firefox than with Internet Explorer, although you may use IE as well)
Go to www. Onlywire.com
Signup at Onlywire (the following actions are explained within Onlywire as well)
Install Onlywire addon for Firefox browser
Setup accounts with each website (social networking services) you wish to utilise
Enter username and password for all social bookmarking/ social networking websites you want to utilize
Once logins are stored with Onlywire you can begin submitting content.
Add the Bookmark & Share Button to your website. If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog with plugin support, download the OnlyWire plugin from WordPress.org. Alternatively install it from your WordPress Dashboard. At the end of each blog post, the Bookmark & Share Button will appear. For older blog posts, use this button on your own website to distribute the content automatically to multiple social networking sites.
For new blog posts, you will see a tick box appear in the new post Dashboard view, that you need to select before you publish. When the blog post is published, it will automatically be published by the Onlywire plugin to all the social networking sites that you have selected to utilize.
It is good practice to visit your Onlywire account after submission to verify the success or failure of submissions to social bookmarking sites. Some social networks require a final step, called Finalization, before the content is published.
Outsource Social Bookmarking
I am the first one to admit that setting up a Social Bookmarking system and then automating it can be a very lengthy process. However the benefits will outweigh the time and effort spent by far!
If you are a business owner or service professional who wants to put a social bookmarking system in place, I recommend that you implement these 4 tips. Next you follow the 10 steps to automate social bookmarking and make it work for your business. Alternatively, you can outsource the effort to put the automated system in place. Then you continue on your own by bookmarking all your new blog posts.
Click on the Bookmark & Share button below to see Onlywire in action. And bookmark this article to your favorite social networking sites for future reference.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us for any assistance at: linky@virtualprojectconsulting.com
Social Media Marketing takes place through various Social Media platforms when they are used as a marketing tool to market a company’s products and services. Social Media tools can be divided into different categories, each category serving its own purpose.
The above diagram depicts some of the key Social Platforms in use today. Many of the platforms can be targeted as marketing tools to increase exposure to your business and grow your business through more sales and strategic partnerships. Let’s look at each key platform in more detail. For the purposes of this article only one example of each type will be discussed.
1) Blogs
From term “weblog” is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. At beginning of 2008 blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs and this number is growing at a rapid pace.
Currently there are 12,9 million active blogs with more than 5 billion readers.
2) Micro-blogging: Twitter
Micro-Blogging is a Social Media tool that answers to 1 question:
“What Are You Doing?”
Answers question in short sentences of 140 characters or less.
Most users on Twitter are already on Facebook .
Twitter is one of the fastest growing Social Media platforms.
It is referred to as ‘Instant messaging on steroids’.
Demographics shows that it is used by politicians, celebrities, news anchors and individuals.
Total visits in May 2009 were 134 million ; with 32 million unique visitors in April 2009.
The Twitter platform is used by 94% of marketers.
3) Really Simple Syndication: RSS
RSS “feeds” allow people to subscribe to the various websites, blogs or sections of websites that are of interest to them.
4) Social Networking: Facebook
Facebook is a well-known Social Media platform to create, participate in groups, share photos, videos, audios online.
It has an Alexa ranking of 5 (fifth most trafficked website in the world).
Currently 300 million active members, growing with 250 000 new members per day and predicted to be 500 million by 2011.
Demographics: fastest growing age group is 30-35. Women aged 55 is also a big growth area
Facebook presents huge opportunities to set up a group discussing areas of interest relating to your business.
5) Niche Networks: LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a Professional Networking Social Media platform and the largest network of its kind. Currently, it is used by more than 50 million professionals to exchange information, ideas, opportunities and business networking.
6) Chatrooms
Build your own network of contacts who share your interests.
7) Message Boards: Forums
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site were any topic of interest is posted and discussed.
8) Podcasts
A podcast is a series of digital computer files, usually either digital audio or video, that is released periodically and made available for download by means of web syndication.
9) Video sharing: You Tube
YouTube was founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal. You Tube is a video sharing Social Media platform that currently has 75 million videos and 150 000 more videos are added per day. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs, and email. In 2006 YouTube was purchased by Google Inc. Video marketing is used significantly more by men than women.
Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, manage and share web pages.
If you enjoyed this summary of social media marketing tools for business, go read my free Social Media Marketing Report which contains more useful information about your most pressing questions about social media as a marketing tool.
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