In my last post I wrote about momentum:

“Momentum is a very important factor when looking at someones reputation on a social site. It is a viral element of someones reputation spreading. What that means is is that if their popularity were to be plotted on a graph it increases exponentially in a curve. The more friends they have (or the more fans there are of their page etc) the more people see them on their friends profiles and more people become their friend.”

Looking at it from that angle makes it seem like a powerful social media profile should only be invested in if you have the resources to keep building the momentum, however that is not the case. Momentum is only created when your reputation is spreading, not decreasing. If you add friends every day for a month you will end up with a whole load of friends at the end of the month and will continue to gain a few more even if you stop. Even if you go an entire month after that month without adding any new friends or content you are guaranteed to not lose any friends and you may gain more. Building a strong social media account is hard work, but maintaining it is less hard.

In short, social media power leaks away slower than it builds up. This is another reason why investing in a strong social media profile a long term strategy one well worth pursuing.

ShareThis

It may be against the rules of many social media sites to have more than one account, but is it beneficial from a marketing perspective?

The Problem With Using Just One Account

You want your profile to be smiled upon by the social media sites algorithm (spam filtering, weighting of your votes etc) as well as the members of the site. On a site like Facebook where there is no voting, it is all about what people think of you - your brand. Facebook lets you create pages to display your Websites separately but what if all the friends you have added are all only interested in just one of your niches? (which is why you added them in the first place).

Momentum And Becoming Diluted

On Digg the situation is similar where people often befriend you depending on what you have been voting on. If you have an odd combination of interests it may result in your reputation and submissions on that site being diluted.

Momentum is a very important factor when looking at someones reputation on a social site. It is a viral element of someones reputation spreading. What that means is is that if their popularity were to be plotted on a graph it increases exponentially in a curve. The more friends they have (or the more fans there are of their page etc) the more people see them on their friends profiles and more people become their friend.

Conclusion

Having multiple accounts may result in the friends on each account being more relevant, but overall the number of friends will be lower because the momentum is not being taken advantage of.

What do you think about using multiple social media accounts for each niche you are involved in?

ShareThis

1. The niche isn’t suited to the web and it doesn’t have passionate “users” e.g. Household Furniture.
2. The niche is too small.
3. The Website just hasn’t been built yet (becoming increasingly rare)

Unless your blog is in a niche that is commonly discussed by geeks online, the chances are you wont find a social voting site to promote on. I believe Stumbleupon is the only voting site that can drive traffic for every single niche and that is only because it is so different from other social voting sites. Note that by driving traffic I mean getting traffic from being vote to page 1, not from spamming.

Is This A Problem?

Social voting sites can often be more of a time waster than a useful tool. If you are anything like me you have spend countless hours reading blogs about social media and going out and “contributing” to these social sites like a good little marketer should. I’ve been doing less and less of both recently, and as a result found myself making much more money than before. Not having a social voting site in your niche is probably a good thing.

ShareThis

Surely everyone who knows that is intelligent enough to realize that if they leave more attention grabbing comments they will receive more traffic and that by leaving a stupid comment they could damage their reputation.

No one needs help with that.

I’e seen 2 posts recently on popular blogs that give out tips for “how you should (or should not) comment” and I must say the reading these posts makes me think the authors are stuck in their own crazy little world.

There is no need to hide in the dark, I’d rather be open with who thinks what.

On caroline-middlebrook.com she attacks a commentor who had left rather average comments only 1 sentence long:

“It looks like he was trying to get a backlink by jumping to the top of my Top Commentator plugin because he left just enough comments to surpass Mark Mason who is currently top of the list. I see people do this quite often and it always raises an eyebrow. However the key question that I ask as a blog owner is “does this comment provide any value to my readers?”

(emphasis is mine)

Why I Disagree With Caroline On This One

1. The purpose of the top commentator plugin is to encourage comments by offering them free promotion. The free promotion is the motive behind the comment. If you don’t want people to leave comments the way they do, take the plugin it down.
2. The comments don’t have to provide value to your readers. They are the voice of your readers.

In addition, not everyone who leaves a blog comment is a marketer trying to gain traffic. Some people just want to say they found something funny or interesting and shouldn’t be required to “add value”. I very rarely leave comments with the purpose to drive traffic anymore. If something I read makes me want to comment, I comment.

Which is more spammy, a lengthy knowledgeable comment made by a marketer with the intent to drive traffic or a “LOL that was hilarious!” from an innocent passer by? Surely the comment left by the marketer is the closest to spam.

Censoring what people say on your blog because it “doesn’t provide value to your readers” is nuts - the commentors ARE your readers! It is the blog authors job to provide value, let the readers say what they like.

ShareThis

Ryan has listed just about every site you will need in order to get the most out of your viral video and he has given out some handy tips too.

I’ve seen lots of bloggers recommending video blogging and I can clearly see the benefits of that, but reading Ryan’s post got me thinking…

Are Viral Videos Really Effective For Every Niche?

Ryan’s advice about getting the video itself popular is all very good. However, creating a “viral video” basically seems like the video equivalent of writing an off-topic blog post for digg.com, only for it to send masses of un-targeted and largely useless traffic.

On the flip side, who would turn down having tens of thousands or more visitors to their Website for next to zero cost? After all, some of them are bound to be interested in what ever it is you are offering.

Video marketing may be the way of the future, but that does not mean that every marketer should be making them now. Viral videos are 1 more weapon added to the Internet marketers arsenal, and that weapon will grow to become more powerful over the next few years, but surely they are nothing more than ‘another weapon’.

What Type Of Video Should All Marketers Produce?

I am by no means an expert on viral videos, but if getting millions of mainstream viewers on YouTube is not what you are looking for, then what is?

Different types of video marketers can use:

• Video Blogging - See 45n5 for a classic video blog.
• Viral Videos - Remember Charles Trippy’s viral video fever?
• Explanation Of Product Videos - For those who have just released a new product and want bloggers in a certain niche to be able to embed a video that explains their product. When BlogRush launched, the founder John Reese used this type of video to great effect.
• Laughable hyped up sales pitches. When a man wearing a second-hand suit suit tries to sell you a product that will make you X million dollars with ‘no risk’.

What do you think about viral videos?
In the meta-blogging/make money online niche, can “viral videos” in the sense Ryan talks about be used?

ShareThis

Gone are the days of TextLinkAds.com when bloggers where unaware of why selling links could be considered gray or even black-hat. This is due to the Google Toolbar PageRank slaying spree a few months back (which still continues).

Google has succeeded in educating bloggers about selling links, but they have failed to raise awareness among advertisers.

Disclaimer
As far as I am concerned the ‘moral’ issue here is irrelevant. This is about money changing hands and the difference between the advertising industry and the link building industry. I have no problem with bloggers selling links, only when brokers are deceptive to their members.

What Is Wrong With LinkXL

On the LinkXL about page it says (and the wording of this is very important), “LinkXL™ allows marketers to organically grow their web site’s link popularity and search engine ranking through contextual text link advertising.” (emphasis is mine).

Increasing your search engine ranking and advertising are 2 very separate things. LinkXL are merging them together in the attempt to attract a portion of the marketers advertising budget, rather than only receiving their smaller SEO budget.

More Deception from LinkXL

LinkXL says that due to the advertisers being able to buy relevant text links, they are actually helping Google, and I quote, “With LinkXL™ links, advertisers are able to purchase extremely relevant text links that drive traffic while serving the algorithmic needs of the search engines.”

There are seemingly endless examples for me to quote on the LinkXL Homepage where they say things that are simply not true. They even say say to bloggers that the links are natural and, “not sponsored”!

Is this a joke? Are advertisers actually going to be tricked into thinking Google wants them to use LinkXL?

ShareThis

If you are ready to launch a social media campaign, you need to set out a proper plan of attack to get the best overall results for your business. Setting goals, researching opportunities, defining your strategy, executing your strategy with consistency and monitoring your results is the key to leveraging this marketing strategy to make the most from the market.

1. Set a Specific Social Media Business Goal

Like anything in business, the more specific of a plan you can have, the better your results will be. If you are ready to launch a social media campaign, set out some specific targets to achieve in this marketing arena. Set a website traffic goal - what will you consider effective to receive as a result of this campaign? Next, determine what level of revenue increase you will need to consider this marketing campaign a success. After you have set these two targets, determine how you will launch and how you will participate in social media techniques.

2. Research Social Networks

With so many social networking sites to choose from, it is important to research and select the best matches for you and your business. I have seen many business owners try to spread themselves too thin when they market, causing them not to get much lift, if any at all in their business revenues. I would recommend choosing 2-5 social networking sites that have a high volume of traffic and that seem to be a good fit for your market segment. If you do well with those over a few months, consider adding more.

3. Define your Strategy

Before you just start going nuts with marketing on social network sites, determine what your plan of attack is. How are you going to reach prospects? How are you going to get people to click back to your sites? What is your credibility strategy for the current site members - knowing that people will buy things from people that they trust? Give some serious thought to this before you get started.

4. Execute your Strategy with Consistency

The Biggest mistake that I see with business owners and this strategy is that people get really excited initially about this marketing medium and then within a few months, they forget to log back in or to make new posts. The online community is very fickle and the efforts that you put in initially will go to waste if you don’t keep it up. Schedule regular time in your calendar to post content and to talk with people on each site - this will yield you the best pick up in results.

5. Monitor your Results

Without data, you don’t have much to go on in terms of marketing. Track your data using the site tools as well as look into social network software that is designed to help with this particular purpose. Use the data that you collect to determine the strategies that are working and which are not. There will always be something to change - marketing is dynamic.

Ryan Shamus has written a 6 part mini-course to help with your web 2.0 promotion.

ShareThis

I know a lot of bloggers who say, “I know… sigh, I should be making more submissions to a social voting site”, but generally they are too lazy or don’t get round to it. They end up submitting perhaps 1 or less URLs each week to that site and have a very weak presence.

This way of doing business seems stupid to me. Either becoming a power user is a part of your strategy and is a necessity, or it isn’t. If it isn’t you shouldn’t be wasting any time making occasional submissions. If you don’t need to become a power user on that site, drop the site.

Social Voting Site Benefits:

Does making sporadic contributions help increase any of these benefits?

• Brand and reputation strength increased
• Traffic to your own articles hitting page 1
• Networking tool to meet other bloggers in the same niche
• Networking/social climbing tool to trade favours on (at your own risk)

These benefits increase with the amount of time and effort you put into contributing to that site. Reaching the stage where most of your submissions hit page 1 takes by far the most time but once a threshold is reached your reputation on that site starts increasing exponentially. Momentum builds up. Sporadic submissions are pointless because you are not taking advantage of how each submission builds upon the last. You are letting your power blow away in the wind. Networking with power users instead might get you a free ride.

All bloggers have different strengths, weaknesses and resources. It may have been beneficial for certain individuals to become power users, but for you it may not be worth it.

If you have been half-heartedly taking part in a social voting site, I recommend thinking if it is really worth it. You may never cross the power user threshold and you would be just as well off if you didn’t make any submissions at all.

I am trying to encourage commitment and clarity in planning. Drop the baggage, do what is needed. My philosophy is that if you can’t become a power user, network with them.

ShareThis