Posts Tagged ‘Social Media Networking’

Generating a buzz to get massive amounts of traffic to your website is best done using social media websites?

The easiest way to accomplish this is to leverage the clout of influencers within the social media community.

Influencers are people within a social network that are respected and liked by others in that community and are able to popularize discussions on topics of interst in that community.

Influencers stimulate the conversations, connect people to ideas and can capture the mindshare or opinion of an audience within a social sphere. All social media websites have a few select individuals who stand out for their activity within the community and their expertise has gained the trust and support of the social media users.

These are the people you are are looking for and the ones you want to influence.

There are so many social media sites and the points we make in this article can be applied to any of them. We’ll be studying how to develope your own strategy for targeting the influencers of these sites to engage  their social network with your content.

Let’s look at a social news site like Digg for example. Digg and other sites like it allow the audience to vote on the value of content with a simple thumbs up and thumbs down vote. By actively participating in the community you can develope a following and become and authority and with that comes influence.

Over time supporters will share your content with friends or add it to their websites and blogs. Social media users can be pitched just like a blogger or writer can be pitched with a simple introduction at first gradually building a relationship that’s mutually benefitial. The goal is to leverage their brand of influence by influencing them to promote your website content within their community.

The main steps are Targeting, Networking and then Pitching the influencer in question.

1.Targeting
Finding a social media influencer that shares your point of view about your content and is relevent to their website or sphere of influence is most important. Making your content in-line or coherent with the influencers interests makes it much easier to get them to promote or agree with your content.

Go to the public user ranking list of the social media site in question, in this case Digg, and visit each profile on the listed looking for who has influence and also who resonates with what you’re promoting. Get a feel for what interests them. You can also do a keyword search on the social media site looking for content based on your keywords and find the users that rank high within the site on those keywords. If they have consistently submitted content around those keywords they are likely to be open to suggestions of simular content. You can also do a URL search of your keywords to find people that may be open to more content of that type.

Using the site yourself will help you discover little details about the user you’re targeting that can help you reach them and develope rapport. For example, while top Digg user MrBabyMan submits a great amount of stories, most active Diggers are familiar with his avid interest in Cracked.com, a popular pop culture/men’s portal/magazine.

2. Networking
After you’re done targeting a specific social media website you need to contact them and develpoe a relationship. You can get in touch with them from their contact info in their user profile and join the site as a registered user. If contact info is not available Google them by their name and user name to see if you can find it elsewhere. Look for their blog or other profiles they may have listed on other sites.

Once you have their contact details initiate a conversation by just send them a note and thank them for their contributions. Trying to pitch to promote your content right away is very bad etiquette and annoying. You can stand out from the crowd of self-interested crowd by genuinely showing your appreciation for their contributions.

Take a genuine interest in them and engage them in a dialog of common interests and do so continuously until you have a good idea what material they would support and do favors for the user by giving them publicity or links to free resources and interesting content (not your own).

Real social media users are always interested in buzz-worthy news or opinions that can boost their own authority within the social media community. Your content or anything else you offer should not only meet the integrity of their personal brand, but it should improve it and the reputation of the user within the community.

Offer them free invites to unrelated websites, give away exclusive information on certain topics. Share some links to excellent websites. Do little favors without asking for anything in return at all. Give them a reason to be interested in you.

Networking is really just about making friends. It’s that simple. This will gradually lead you into the third and final stage: Pitching the influencer.

3.Pitching
So now that you’ve built a rapport with this person what next?

A. Ask Casually.
Do your pitching in a light hearted and casual manner and do not aggressively push the user to promote your content. This is a huge turnoff and you should understand that the user has a perfect right to refuse you.

B. Disclose Your affiliation.
I would recommend letting the user know that you are affiliated with the specific website, particularly if you plan to have a long working relationship with the user. He or she will appreciate your honesty and it will also make it easier for you to ask the second time round.

C. Space out your pitches.
The biggest mistake you can make is to ask the influencer to promote every single piece of content that comes out on your site. This is a major irritant so only offer the user your best work, while pitching your material only once per week or every two weeks.

Continue to keep aclose contact after they are promoting your site. Building a long-term relationship will have longterm results and targeted in-bound links to your website for years to come.

Good Luck!

Talk soon,

Frank Tocco–Marketing Mentor

To those of us who use social networks frequently, or are familiar with the way the social web works, this post will seem self-evident.
However, in conversations with a couple clients and individuals lately who are unfamiliar with social media marketing, this question has consistently cropped up.

The main problem people have is reconciling making friends with possible ROI. What you need to know is that by adding friends or accepting friend requests, you are taking one more step to building your authority and visibility in your industry, which WILL lead to ROI (in the form of traffic, sales conversions or whatever your goal) as people recognize you as a leader in your field and choose you over possible competitors for services and products they need.

Here are 5 general, point-by-point reasons friends matter on social networks:

1. Relationship building.
The whole reason social networking is successful is because its very foundation is built on creating and maintaining relationships with people. Start conversations, introduce yourself, do everything you can to put yourself out there and meet as many people as possible. If you like the person or company you’ve built a relationship with, you’ll probably recommend them to your friends, and vice versa. If you make friends with someone in a related industry, you’ll benefit from recommending their services to your clients, and they’ll benefit from recommending you to theirs (e.g. a web designer recommends a social media marketer they like, a Realtor recommends a mortgage provider they know is honest and effective, and vice versa).

2. Referrals and recommendations.
You matter to me, and I matter to you, because if I like that really cool video you sent me, I’ll visit the site its from to look for more.
If I digg that awesome article and send it to my friends, or they see I dugg it, they might check it out too. If I get an awesome deal on this website’s service, I’m going to send you there. Or if I hear from you about it, I’m going to go there. If I find a fan page for a product I love, I might stop by, create a profile, and add myself as a fan, then tell all my friends about it. You do the calculations.

3. Access to more user info.
Many sites hide people’s profiles until you add them as a friend. Thus, adding someone as a friend is a good way to communicate with them in a more personal setting.

4. UGC, or User-Generated Content.
The more friends you have and interact with, the more content is produced on your site or page, and the more visible it becomes.
If you have a ton of people talking on your Facebook fan page, for example, all that content is adding to your area’s ability to be ranked on the search engines AND attract more users.

5. A large social community.
The more people you add as friends and the more you get to know them, and they you, the more popular you or your social networking profile becomes. Soon, you have a large community of supporters that further reinforces your authority and leader status in your industry.

What better way to brand your company and communicate a specific message to a mass of people?