My good friend Aaron Brazell from Technosailor asked me if I’d record a short video for a presentation he was giving on the topic of Social Media. He asked me to speak about marketing with Social Media sites. I thought I’d publish the video here also.
To summarize – I share 4 simple tips on marketing your blog with social media sites.
- Be an Active Participant
- Have a Consistent Presence on Different Social Media Sites
- Add Value to the Wider Community
- Let Others Sell You
Do you prefer any particular site? I get a lot of traffic from Flickr, and also have the feeling that when I understand it better, that StumbleUpon will be right for my niche (healthy food) and I still don’t know about Facebook. Your point about a consistent brand across different platforms is a very good one. When I think of what I owe a little Amsterdam mouse!
I must say you have got some great points. Social media is a fascinating concept and something I am only just getting the hang off.
Hi Darren, I like your point of being consistent in your profiles. I’ve thought of that with the avatar but I like the detail of keeping your message consistent.
I especially like your point about adding value to the overall community. If one does this, the chances of others selling you are very high.
Great tips. I owe a lot of my success to social media; especially StumbleUpon.
Incredible post…but I would like to encourage you to not be so rough on your mugg because it is not ugly. Besides, ugly is a negative term. Use the word beautiful instead. It has more power in it and still will get a laugh. I know you are a humble person or you would not be as successful as you are.
Great video post!….I love what you said about promoting others on your site. That philosophy is one that is shared by many successful people throughout the ages and it will surely propell Problogger to greater heights.
Thanks big “D” and keep up the awesome job!
Rob West
Excellent points regarding consistency and personal branding with gravatars and images Darren.
I agree wholeheartedly in your comments regarding allowing others to “talk you up”, as opposed to doing what may appear as bragging about ourselves on Twitter or any other social networking site.
It’s truly about building relationships with other bloggers, and getting to know one another on a more personal basis.
Excellent tips Darren, Social marketing is a great way to get a site going and your tips are helpful!
Thanks for that Darren. I enjoyed it.
Good attitude on promoting other people, Darren. I find that one key problem in the ProBlogger space is that people go all out to promote themselves instead of building relationships and promoting other prople.
I’m sure it’s all about Karma when you scrape the complexity away. Good vid by the way, I wish I had the balls to to vlogging.
So short? We’ll wait for the video then:)
Yesterday I stumbled a blogger that writes everyday and then she decided to reduce the frequency and participate in other community more.
Time is of the essence. Participation is just as time-consuming as writing post. But as worthwhile of course..
Great tips! I especially appreciated your points about being a valuable member of the social media sites and promoting others, instead of always promoting yourself. Those seem like great ways to build credibility.
Hi Darren,
Thanks for that video.
Short and Sweet.
Straight to the point.
Personally, I have been overwhelmed by the different social networking sites.
Anyone particular ones to recommend for an Internet Marketing Newbie?
Great tips for driving traffic to your site.
I work on digital coaching for musicians and I totally agree with adding value and participating in the community in a way that you’re seen to be giving and not taking, leeching from your network trying to flog off your album or whatever . . . you’re just as annoying as the next band with a bot.
Good summary of what social media can do for you, good to emphasize that there’s more to it than meets the eye as well … shall I thumb it ? ;)
It takes a lot to be effective on these sites. Good tips. Here’s hoping they work for the people that matter.
Also, wanted to let you know about a newsreader out there that exists that bases it’s content on what the user actually WANTS to see. It’s called ‘Sprout’. Very intuitive, quickly learns what you like to read and what doesn’t interest you. There’s a free trial on now. You can find it here: http://www.yoursprout.ca.
These tips are quite good. Social Media is a new and fascinating concept and taking the web by storm too.
thanks for the tips.. i never a good social-media-sites player, all i did was just open an account and leave it there.
Thanks for reminding us, Darren!
I am so well aware of the importance for the success of my blog but just can’t seem to find the time to ‘digg’, to ‘stumble’ and do all these things.
I have actually no clue how you guys handle all those social media accounts with building communities, contacts & friends etc. and still write quality content on your blog and maintain websites as I do?!
I would at least need 1 or 2 people to help out but who wants to work for fame, which is not guaranteed to come???
Aloha, Pua
p.s.
BTW: Guest posters wanted for ‘Hawaii vacation’ articles w/link to your blog and short bio!!!
Dear Darren,
This is my first reply here.
Thank you particularly for Tip 4, which being unexpected and contrarian, is a refreshing surprise.
I like it very much, because I have always been uncomfortable with hard-sell.
—
To -Pua- (February 23rd, 2008 4:40 am), who replied just before me, may I suggest:
One step at a time.
Long ago, I started with email.
Next I took halting baby steps surfing the Web.
Then just a while back, I tried out instant messaging (using what is called Windows Live now).
Recently I got onto Facebook.
And now I’m rediscovering the joy of blog comments.
All the best to everyone, with social media!
What’s weird is when you pursue social marketing for your job and then in your personal life too. I promote both a software company and a local tech community site, and I often have to decide which email address I want to use and link to. You can’t really maintain a “work” identity and a “play” identity. Since everything is documented and searchable, having more than one persona becomes impossible.
Let Others Sell You sound as good social media marketing tip but how ?
Hey Darren,
Recently found you thanks to the Tall Skinny Kiwi. Been enjoying your stuff and learning much on my way from amateur blogger to professional web publisher. Thanks for your great quality stuff here. I bow to the master!
Thank you so much Darren
I read your article here in Guayaquil, Ecuador
in my country the most popular social website is hi5
myspace is slowly becoming popular
but we get a lot of traffic mainly from hi5
we will do as you say buddy
Always pleasure to see if someone is promoting people without any condition.
Thank you so much for the tips. I’m always learning a lot from this website. Keep it up :)
I have subscribed to your RSS feeds so that I’ll be always updated about the your latest tips here at problogger.net ^_^
This is still very much game theory, isn’t it? There are only so many readers around. And so many minutes avaliable for reading blogs?
#4 is very important. Thanks for sharing some tips on how to market our blog to social media sites.
nhick
http://www.itrush.com
Well, i’m being doing just some of social marketing, butthe presentation on your video is really great.
Social media is the new to promote your site.
You take the traffic the you already have straight to your website.
Loved the tips especially number #4.
In reaction to -radiohode- (February 24th, 2008 12:45 pm):
Finite audiences: that is true of any media these days, isn’t it?
Yet enough attention gets through for some, who may then eventually prosper.
And it’s not always the giants who get all the traffic.
Otherwise by now, only a few monopolies would remain.
Hope is a powerful thing.
Of course, there are no guarantees in life.
Yes, it is very tempting to knock up an account, forget about creating your profile and drop a link there. I didn´t understand at first, but I think everyone should spend the time to really get involved in this type of promotion. Social media is advertising 2.0 and it can be the most honest and viral traffic to get out there.
Mike
Thanks for the tips. The last one makes perfect sense, because ever since I signed up for the RSS feed here a few weeks ago, I’ve been referring anyone who has asked me questions about blogging to this site. The most credible referrals are the unsolicited ones.
I posted a video of myself on Facebook battling sharks with my bare hands and got 5 million comments. Yes. 5 frickin’ million.
Great tips, I love stumble upon and am trying your tips to build my social media network
I’ve just started using Stumble Upon on a regular basis and am still getting to grips with the different functions that it offers. I’ve never been active on a social media site before so I am interested to see what happens!
Thanks for these tips they’ll definitely help me along the way!
“Let Others Sell You!” sounds really great but it’s a quite difficult…
It is no doubt that with this global access to information and contents that transcends geographical and political boundaries made possible through the Internet and the World Wide Web, online marketing advertising becomes the most effective way in delivering marketing messages and attracting costumers.
:-)
I’m still trying to warm up to social networking. One side of brain says “go for it because it’s a great way to promote yourself and it’s the next big web wave,” but the other side says, “if one more person I don’t know asks me to be his friend, I’m going to vomit!” I’m not sure if I “get it” yet or ever will.
One thing I’d be interested in hearing you talk about are the different social networking sites and how one might work better for different purposes than another. For example, I’m already on ning, though I don’t do much there right now. But, everyone I know is on myspace, so now I’m thinking of joining that. LinkedIn seems good for more professional contacts, and facebook, I’m still not sure about. Also as far as branding, is it better to have your name in the url of your spot on these networks or does that matter?
Thanx Darren for very useful information. I like all the points you said. This will really help to market our blog.
I enjoyed your webcast.Im just getting into blogging,but I think Im gonna like it.
Darren,
Those are excellent tips to keep in mind in order to grow our business.
Gisele
great ideas Darren, I wil give them a try!
http://www.hideNsneek.com
I think you have summarized in a few short minutes 80% – 90% of what it takes to succeed on social media sites. The other 10% – 20% is building up a quality group of friends on these sites.
These are people who share your same interests, appreciate the same type of content and ideas, etc. These are the people who will notice your recommendations and promote you.
And don’t forget, being a friend goes two ways. Note their recommendations and promote them when they have something worth recommending and promoting.
This is great, thanks for sharing some tips on how to effectively use social sites. Stumbled!
nhick
http://www.itrush.com
Great tips. In spite of my long-term internet use, I’ve avoided social networking to some extent, seeing it as just “one more thing” to add to my long to-do list.
I might venture out slowly, with these ideas in mind.
Alison
These four simple tips are so simple but extremely useful. I started to notice the difference when I use Stumbleupon, digg etc. But so far, I did not get a lot from delicious.
Thanks for the concise comments. I tend to be longwinded. Do you recommend singing onto comments and social networking with a real name (Scott) or with the blog site name?
Let others sell yourself. I love this one. It really wraps up what a social community is all about. Same concept as an affiliate program except they do it for free and the opinions on not money motivated so they are real and honest. thanks for the tips.