I bet you do. I think we all do and you know what happens? We end up with a bunch of worthless social networking accounts that lie dormant forever.

We sign up, login, note down our login details (if at all) and promptly forget about them again. LOL, does this sound like you? If it does and you just nodded your head, don’t worry as help is at hand right now.

I have a great tip that can save you hours of wasted time.

That tip is… drumroll please….

Stop wasting your time with every new social networking site that graces our email inbox! I’m dead serious here guys. You want to start learning to focus on two to three social networking sites max and become good at using them.

This will have two major effects:

1. You will become a well known user within your network and make way more useful connections and…
2. You stop wasting your valuable time doing bits and pieces here and there.

Trust me on this one. Since I have implemented this strategy, my days have gained a couple of hours which I now use to network with people instead of chasing my tail going in circles.

It doesn’t matter which social network you use either. It certainly does help, if this network is within your field of marketing. For example, if you are a Stumble Upon user, you probably like a good mixture of useful tips, tutorials, photography, fun and some blogging.

If you are a Digg user you are probably more into news, politics, gossip, gaming and some marketing.

If you are a Mixx user you are clearly into Internet marketing, tech, news, health and more.

If you are a MyBlogLog user, then blogging in all its variations is your thing.

Naturally there are way more social networking sites out there and if you are not sure, just do a Google search for them. In the end, it helps to join those sites that will help you to network with like minded people in your field of business.

This will not only make social networking a whole lot easier than trying to follow each latest trend, but also make you a lot of new friends and business contacts.

Let me know how you network.

Social Networking Made Easy

Since it was released, thousands of users on Facebook have taken their turn in trying out Facebook’s API’s. The programs range from simple games to mini book stores. At first, these programs were created for the user to have something interesting to put on their page, but the developers got smart. They said, why should we spend so much time making these programs when we don’t receive anything back from them? That is where monetization came into play.

Facebook allowed the developers to display an unlimited number of advertisements in their programs. Developers got to work including advertisements on their download pages and inside the actual programs. After some testing, it was realized that contextual advertising was probably not the best route, so developers focused on promoting affiliate links, or links that send you to a product page. Instantly, developers started to see profits skyrocket as users would them their program to other users, and thus more people would click on the links.

Right about now, you should be wanting to get into this. It sounds like easy money; all you have to do is build a program and put ads inside it. However, it’s definitely not that easy. Only a handful of programs will become popular enough to create a decent profit. But let’s just say that your program does become popular enough. Here are some ways to monetize your Facebook app:

CPM Banners: CPM Banners pay the publisher whenever a user views the ad. These would go either in your download page or somewhere in the app.

CPC Banners: CPC Banners pay the publisher whenever a user clicks on the ad. These would go in the same place as CPM Banners.

CPA Systems: CPA Systems pays whenever a user does something like take a survey or sign up for a product. Same place as above.

Affiliate Links: Affiliate links send the user to a page where a product is being sold. If the user buys the product, the publisher get paid a percentage of the profit. These links go inside the content of the app.

Although the most popular of the four is affiliate links, all of the other advertisements can generate decent revenue for your Facebook app.

Monetizing Your Facebook App

Guest Blogging. We all know what it is. You draft a post, contact another blogger in your niche and request your article to be published. If he accepts, good. If not, you move onto another blogger and repeat the process.

Guest Blogging can make or break your career in the blogosphere. A good post can bring you excellent and targeted traffic with a good possibility of increase in your RSS Subscribers and a bad post can do equal damage.

There are bloggers I know, who believe that an average post is good enough as guest post, and that the best posts should be reserved for their own blogs. In my opinion, these bloggers have no idea what Social Marketing and Networking is. They really don’t. Imagine, you guest post at a blog that has 5000 subscribers and a daily traffic volume of 10000 visitors. What do you want to do? Produce an average post or your best ever?

Now, why did I give the title as “Politics of Guest Blogging”? Because I love the dirty art of politics. Kidding of course. If you are smart, you can do more than just a guest post. Your guest post can be a sales letter to pitch, say, a service you offer at your blog. If you play your cards well, your guest post can perform better than a $450 paid review at JohnChow.com. You need to have the mind of a politician to do that Have you ever given a thought to it? Let us quickly run a comparison.

A paid review is:

• A commercial Ad.

• Can be biased.

• Can hold a positive or negative impression on the reader’s mind.

• Can be completely ignored by the reader

On the contrary, a guest post is:

• Considered a piece of knowledge

• Treated with respected by the reader

• Responded to positively 99.9% of the time.

• Not given the commercial picture.

• The writer is generally viewed as an authority and so, the follow-up is great.

If you are smart, you can subtly and gently indicate the crowd to follow you, without painting the commercial picture. There is no harm in providing a link back to any part of your blog and talking about it. The point is, avoid the obvious sales pitch. You don’t want to make it your last guest post by ruining your reputation.

Practice moderation. Develop the Brain of a politician. Do not write a mediocre post like I just did. Fortunately, this isn’t a guest post. My bed rest has killed my focus that has resulted in a post like this. LOL.

The Politics of Guest Blogging

I have owned this software for the past 6 months. Before we go ahead, please take a moment to read my Affiliate Review policy. Let’s move forward.

Web2Submitter allows you to submit to about 9 different Social sites from various niches plus Onlywire.com, a one click social submission site. The owners Brandon and Jack claim that this tool saves several hours in a week by reducing the time taken for submission. Everything basically is done from a single interface. All you have to do is click the button once to login and click again to fill in the info and click a third time to submit. As easy as 1,2,3.

While I agree with the 1,2,3 theory, I do not really believe it saves minimum 7 hours every week. Why? Because, I have done both manual and semi-auto submission and it took me just an extra 10 minutes to while submitting manually. I keep a notepad handy and then it is just a matter of copy and paste for each site.

So, Lesson # 1 – They are lying. Sounds rude?

Next, you have this guy called Sam Beatson who claims this software saves him 5 hours everyday. I am not sure if this guy is smart or stupid. What in the world is taking him 5 hours a day for? I have submitted multiple articles in a day and it has never taken more than an hour for me at the most. This guy Sam, as well as the other testimonies, are giving the false impression that it is Web2submitter that is getting them all the “Traffic Overload”.

It is not true. This software only reduces your submission time by a few minutes. You can get the exact same “Traffic Overload” without this software. Period.

So, Lesson # 2 – They are lying. Sounds rude again?

The only useful part of this deal is the Buzz group. It is a private membership based group where you can send your post every week, and if they like your content, they will vote for you, thus helping you get better exposure. I still use them and will continue to. Is this worth $47? I don’t know, but since I bought the deal, I am a part of them.

They have another bonus for you. Oh actually, a “promotion in disguise” bonus. They give you a free 1 week test drive of “Authority Site Center” so that you can tour the product and buy if you are convinced. I wasn’t convinced, so I signed out. This really isn’t a bonus but a stupid marketing gimmick.

Am I using this software now? No. I am not. I have all my social sites in my toolbar and I do the same one click submissions without the software. Moreover, nowadays, I only submit to Sphinn, Shoutwire and StumbleUpon. Takes me less than 10 minutes, unlike Sam Beatson’s “5 sweaty hours”. Sam Beatson, you indeed beat me!

After all the explanation above, if you still plan to buy it and try it, by all means go ahead. It costs $47 only. Click one of the links in this article to visit their page and buy Web2Submitter. Now you are wondering why the affiliate link eh? Go ahead and read my affiliate policy once again.

Review Thursday – Web2Submitter

The Top 5 Marketing Strategies in 2008 for a long term business will be:

1. Profile Marketing: Participation in Niche Communities and establishment of a powerful profile.

2. Influential Marketing: Contribution of Authority content to niche communities to build influence and a strong following

3. Linkbait Marketing: Creating irresistible knowledge content to pull backlinks from high profile sources.

4. Facebook Marketing: This trend is slowly gaining and people are waking up to the possibilities of Facebook for their businesses.

5. Social Media Marketing: This encompasses everything above and more.

I will elaborate on these later one by one. Let me get ready for my dental appointment.

Top 5 Marketing Strategies for the Year 2008

When I did a Search for Social Media, Google gave me access to data back as far as 2004. Here is the first graph that shows a combined 4 years of growth.

You can notice that the Search trend has been constant in the 3 years except 2 times when it tanked unusually. This graph doesn’t really speak much as it is comprehensive. More on that later. Let me display the yearly graphs for a detailed look.

Year 2004

Notice the period between April and September. It was literally flat, meaning the Search Volume was the lowest for Social Media at that time. Then you see a sudden spurt in the volume in October and later months. Notice the falling graph at the end.

Year 2005

This year was similar but the time period the Search volumes tanked were relatively short. For most of 2005, the Search volumes were pretty good. Noticed the fall at the end of the graph.

Year 2006

Again, the trend this year was better than the previous year. There was a mild reduction in the middle of the year, but it picked up pretty fast. Notice again, the fall in the graph at the end.

Year 2007

The year 2007, in my opinion was very good for Social Media. The growth in Search Volume was pretty steady and organized. You can see the rise in the beginning and how it remained constant till July and then moved up again. It only explains the fact that people are getting educated more and more on the virtual culture and recognizing the power of online communities. A healthy trend indeed.

Here is a list of the top 10 countries, cities and languages that were the source of the Search Volume.

The reason why every graph showed a fall in the Search Volumes at the end is simply because of the beginning of the Holiday season. People’s attention diverted to priorities like Holiday shopping and preparing for the new year. The graphs below clearly explains what I am talking about.

Christmas Shopping

Look towards the end of the graphs. The Search volume pretty much skyrocketed compared to the rest of the year. Christmas and New year were clearly the winners at this time. A sure sign for us online entrepreneurs.

Back to the topic. Social Media online has definitely grown and gained wide recognition. I am not sure if we are nearing another bubble burst, but I can tell you the trend will surely continue for a long time before it crumbles.

Next week, I will try and cover Social Marketing trend for the past 4 years.

Social Media Trend – Genesis and Evolution Part 1

I have never been on the front page of Digg. There was one time I came close and the hypocrites there banned me. Maybe they do not tolerate Quality content anymore. I mean it. I have seen stale contents getting on the front page of Digg. Pretty sad.

I am beginning to wonder if too much stress is laid on these 2 communities. I rarely hear anyone talking about a community like Reddit or Propeller or Newsvine. I am also wondering if it is because of the massive numbers that the above 2 communities deliver, that they literally drown the other smaller Social distribution channels.

I am a big fan of Shoutwire, a small but popular Social community, and actually one of the first websites for Social interaction and individual freedom of Speech. I first came across Shoutwire in early 2006 and honestly, I was pretty impressed by the plethora of contents. Their topics cover from business to politics to entertainment to Lifestyle and more.

Okay, back to my main point. I have had 4 articles from blogs featured in Shoutwire. The first 3 articles got 2000 visitors each in less than 24 hours. Upon analysis, I have to say, the visitors were not really the useless types that comes from Digg, but really read my article and many of them left comments, both positive and negative.

3 days back, one of my articles made it to the front page. This was the 4^th in line. This story got me an unusual 4000+ visitors in less than 48 hours. My story was on the front page for over 24 hours and got heavily shouted and of course bashed.

I use 3 analytics program to gain an insight into the visitor averages. Google Analytics is one of them. I will cover them in another article, another time. Google Analytics recorded 3758 visitors in a period of 40 hours. Program 2 recorded 4117 visitors in the same period. Program 3 recorded 4431 visitors. I consider 4000 to be the rough average. That is 4000 visitors in a period of 40 hours. Definitely not bad.

It took me 19 votes to make it to the frontpage of Shoutwire compared to the 50-100 votes that Digg requires. It has been the same in the past 2. The previous 3 articles took 19, 20, and 22 votes respectively to be pushed to frontpage. It was definitely worth the effort.

I am pretty sure, I will use Shoutwire for a long time to satisfy my traffic needs. Certain people are worried about the critical nature of Shoutwire members, but I really am not. I love criticism and really feast on it. It has helped me a lot in growing up to becoming what I am today.

Shoutwire – Have you paid attention to this little gem?

So, what is the answer? Social Media of course. Social Media is the answer to your immediate traffic concerns. What do I mean by Social Media? I am talking about community based sites that are actually powered by everyday people like you and me. These sites are made by the people for the people.

Let us take an example. Reddit.com is a social powered website.

In the snapshot above, you can see a list of links to articles from different websites and blogs. This is how it basically it works. You go ahead and sign up with the service, in this case Reddit.com. Confirm your account through the email they send you. After that, login to your account on the top right hand side of the site at http://www.reddit.com. Next, on top right hand corner of the site, you will see a link that says “Submit”. Click on it.

Submit your details. The first is the URL of the story in your blog. The second is the title of your story. Next, type the verification code and click submit.

The above image is the result of your submission. On the left top, do you see a orange arrow? That is reddit’s way of asking readers to vote. Whenever, you like a story and want to vote for it, you have to click the UP arrow. If you do not like the story, you can click on the DOWN arrow and it will be counted as a vote against the story, reducing it’s credibility.

So, the above is typically how a Social Media site operates. Social Media sites are also known as Social Marketing sites and Social Bookmarking sites. It is because you’re marketing your content by bookmarking it in a public area for social exposure.

There are many Social sites on the Internet geared towards various niches. Below I have given a brief list of some of them.

Digg.com – Technology related
Reddit.com – Programming and web 2.0
Shoutwire – Politics, Celebrity and Lifestyle
Sphinn.com – Search Marketing
PlugIM – Internet Marketing
Propeller – General
StumbleUpon – General and very popular. Another article, another day.
Onlywire.com – A collection of 25 Social sites that you can submit in one click.
Newsvine.com – Breaking news and opinions.

There are many more, but the above are popular and get massive exposure. Get your feet wet on them and learn more as you go. I will be covering more on Social marketing as times goes. Be sure to refer back to my blog.

I want the world to read my blog post – Part 8

Using that image, let’s ask some questions: How acceptable is social marketing within online communities? Are these grounds solely the turf of the Big Players, competing for ad space on such high volume traffic sites? In which capacity can we, the work-from-home marketers, feel comfortable among the folks to whom we address ourselves, services, or products?

The answers to all of these questions are for you, the aspiring social marketer, to judge as you read on…

Let’s start by briefly looking to the past, not only to see how this style of marketing came about, but also for some inspiration.

First, a marketer would not be a marketer if it could not be done. It has always been part of our job- nay, our blood- to take risks! We started by knocking on doors. Bravely going from home to home, undauntingly facing rejection, happily making connections, all on a person to person, one by one basis. Back then no one ever heard of Seth Godin’s “Permission Marketing,” yet it was already well practiced, with doors being opened or slammed shut – whether the vacuum cleaner was or was not needed. Later, we armed ourselves with discounts and incentives, thus giving us more tools, besides a cleanly shaven face and charm, with which to pry and keep doors open.

The advent of the internet created a whole new means of reaching people. It was a wide open world for grabs, a whole new neighborhood, and nothing to have to knock on?!?! Then, many marketers brazenly used email and forums to bully themselves through open doors until people finally fought back the “spammers.” Fortunately, permission marketing now is legal standard on the World Wide Web.

Over time, linear discussion groups evolved into large social communities thanks to XML, a website authoring language that interprets data shared in profiles, pictures, music, videos, and blogs, connecting into an intricate interactive world of thought, concern, and interest we love the internet for. Now it’s up to the marketer to craft a message that not only fits seamlessly into the new social networking scene but also rewards their readers as well.

Envision how this happens. I share my images of a gorgeous Jamaican sunset and rave about mouth watering cuisine. Let’s say my post is rich in descriptive content that draws people in, preferably those ready to pack their suit cases. And like in real community life, we meet critics who deem the cuisine poisonous, and hence turn this post into a debate. Now it gets exciting, because as my post touches more and more readers and continually draws commentary, it starts having a life of its own. Some may even add me to their friends list and point still other friends to my Jamaican sunsets, making my post viral exposing it to more and more readers. Most likely, some of those readers will also welcome the affiliate links to the Jamaican Travel Tour Guide, Airplane Tickets and Accommodations, although I’d refrained from hard-selling any of the items. Instead, those links are now appreciated by fellow social networking members as easy-to-access resources.

In my opinion, social marketing is a natural part of the social community’s network entirety. When done in a manner that embraces and honors its readers, rather than trying to fool them, both the marketer and the reader benefit. A free flow of information is what powers social marketing, not good ad copy. In this way, a marketer’s expertise can indeed be of service to others. So it is in this spirit, I say, thumbs up to social marketing! And yes, we have the right to be here.

Now it’s up to you, oh brave door to door minstrel. Are you ready to sing your song in this great big fair? Happy travels, and just remember: The successful social marketer sings their song in harmony with the ebb and flow of the surrounding audience.

Author: Dee Wilson
Web Content Developer
David Bullocks List Building Techniques

Guest Article – Thumbs Down On Social Marketing?