My thoughts on social media?

Music in the background – Black Eyed Peas – Talking about your generation

Building an online community, product development, joint ventures or affiliate programs are not something you can easily implement for immediate results. This is the same principle around social media sites. It should not take longer than 6 months to get your word out, then another 6 months to really integrate and communicate with the readers. Social media, sorry to say, is a long term operational activity for your marketing.

Top sites to get more traffic via the internet?

Traffic - not referring to cars…but people accessing your site, your information via the online channel – the blessed Internet. Anyone can access it, the only difference is which browser they chose to use.

Get more traffic and plan it into YOUR schedule, so that there is a time when you must do it, remember to do it and your online community expect it!

1. Just like you go fishing (or hubby) get your bait together and link it all up!

Use Digg, Reddit, del.icio.us or StumbleUpon. This is by the far the easiest and most powerful way to get traffic to your site during the weekends.

Social news sites usually get less news during the weekend, and it is likely that your bait will be more successful during this time!

2. Publish During the Weekend. Publishing during the weekend will get you some traffic, especially if you have many feed subscribers as some of them will visit your site to read the full article or comments. Smaller sites can also benefit as new content will bring in a small amount of long tail search traffic.
   

Set future publish dates on your post during the weekend so you don’t have to sit down in front of the computer to write. Asking a question is sometimes the quickest way to put out an extra blog post.

3. Biggest one to mention, and the least used is COMMENT on other BLOGS.
1. Why? When you reply to a blog, leave your web site subtly, or enable other bloggers to investigate YOU
2. Promote your understanding and view points, invoking curiosity!
3. Some good blog sites: Blogcatalog or MyBloglog, orble, blogger – all you need to do is search keywords about the subject you want to ‘make comment on’

4. Adwords- sign up to Google AdWords – free and you may even get paid for it too!

5. Try Blog Traffic Exchanges. Blog traffic exchanges the tools which allow you to obtain traffic by visiting other blogs. They are more useful for newer blogs and as they require more time and effort on your part, I suggest using them strategically to find new blogs within your niche as well.

The downside of all of these methods (with the exception of paid advertising) is the time-investment. Do you really want to spend time in front of the computer on the weekend? The amount of time needed for these tasks will vary and perhaps it would be better to alternate them each weekend to lessen the workload.

Another way to deal with this would be to get someone to help promote your site(s) grow much faster.

If you have the time and interest, try implementing some of the tactics listed in this article. I’ll love to hear if it helps you to get more visitors this weekend.

Of course, contact me and I can give you a selection of social media management packages to choose from (from $75)!