Outsource My Social Media Marketing

Secure high-quality backlinks and new RSS subscribers without wasting time with this new social media marketing technique. Tom Deeter at Web2Center.com explains how to do “smart blog commenting” in this 10 minute step-by-step video tutorial.

AdvancedIncome.com How -To Automatically Ping Your Blog Social Media Marketing Tips How-To Videos Social media marketing is the process of marketing your site or business via social media. Social media is online media where news, photos, videos, and podcasts are made public via social media websites through sers. It’s generally with a voting process to make media items become “popular”. Social Media Marketing Expanded Definition Social Media marketing is the using of information that transforms people from content readers into content publishers and then potential customers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism to a many-to-many model, rooted in conversations between authors, people, and peers. Social media uses the wisdom of crowds to connect information in a collaborative manner. Social media can take many different forms, including tips, Internet forums, message boards, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies such as blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, group creation and voice over IP, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are Google (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Facebook(social networking), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), and Flickr (photo sharing). Also weblogs (blogs), RSS feeds, social software, and social marketing marketing. You can get simple easy …

So you have been hearing all the buzz about getting free exposure for your product or service by using the great social media platforms like Youtube & Facebook, right? Whether you have your Twitter, Youtube, or Facebook channel created yet, you probably have no idea how to piece them all together like a jigsaw puzzle to produce the most exposure to your product or service.

And if you follow any of the successful marketers online, everyone of them have a great personal blog. So create your own or outsource it immediately.

But how is all this supposed to work together in your online marketing efforts you ask?

Unfortunately just posting content to your blog and expecting it to be found in the searches is just part of the equation.

If there is one thing you should never do and that is never send your Facebook & Twitter friends directly to your biz opp. or product. You will turn off anyone remotely interested in you if you do it this way. Just imagine going to a party at someones house and immediately shouting a sales pitch to everyone on how they should join your travel business? You would be the geek of the night.

Don’t forget that these sites are social media hangouts, so be just that, social. It is crucial to build some kind of re pore before presenting your product or service.

Making your blog the “nucleus” of all your other Web 2.0 sites is the key. In other words, every one of your social sites needs to be pointing people to your blog, not a product sales page.

Let me explain what I mean by the use of the word “nucleus” in this context. Your personal blog is supposed to tell the world a lot about you and what your specialties are. This can entail a personal history of your life all the way to your specific business and products. People join people so make your site professionaly personable, informative and full of value.

Your blog is not supposed to be a billboard of advertisements. Here is an example: when you have been friended by someone on Facebook and they click on your blog link to learn more about you, they should never be bombarded by advertisements. The purpose of the viewer’s visit to your blog it to like what they see and want to know more. Let them chose to click on the section they want to read about, that way they made up their own mind.

So here is the summarization of what we have just gone over.

*Use your social media sites like radar to locate, break the ice, and actually start relationships with your targeted audience.

*Once you have established some kind of re pore with your new social media friends point them to your professional blog and let them take action to work with you on their own.

*I would also have a way to capture contact information from your viewers right on your blog.

*Now enjoy the massive website traffic & profits that exponentially grow as you execute this formula over time.

Successful marketing!

10 Questions to Evaluate a Social Media ‘Expert’

If you know more than 5 people, chances are you now know someone who declares themselves a social media expert. How can you tell if someone’s claim of expertise is legit? Here’s my quick quiz. Ask each question and take the appropriate action:

1: Do you have a blog?

If the expert answers ‘no’, that may be OK. Follow up with something like ‘Oh, you’re using Posterous instead?’. If they look at you blankly, end the meeting there. No sense wasting your time.

If the expert answers ‘yes’, get the address and go look. If they’ve been blogging for less than 2-3 years, and there’s no explanation like “I had to move my blog”, again, end the meeting.

Any social media expert has been somehow participating in the conversation for a long time.

If they are using a non-seo’d blogging system, run.

If they do not understand the coding requirements to allow their blog to speak to at least 100 social media networks via API… again, run!

2: When did you start in social media?

“6 months ago”. Yeah. OK. Bye.

“2 years ago”. Hey, not bad. Worth a chat.

“In 1992″. Er. Um. They’d better be referencing BBSes and Usenet.

3: What is social media?

“Blogging and Twitter and stuff”. Excuse yourself for a bathroom break and don’t come back.

“All of the conversations going on between people and people and businesses and such online”. Not bad.

“A trendy term to describe a new kind of mass media”. Acceptable.

“A careful mix of technology and media designed to extend your reach”. More like it!

4: What’s a social media campaign?

“Voting something to the front page of Digg using my proxy server and 35 computers”. Flee the scene, and get to a minimum safe distance as soon as possible. The Digg brigade may be on its way. Whatever you do, don’t hire them. While this is a valid tactic (I guess), it’s not a campaign. Nor does it generate long term results in most cases.

“Developing a great message and then reaching out to people, while giving them an incentive to ‘pass it on’”. Yeah, OK, keep ‘em around.

“I have this great software that will put a link to your site on 21,000 forums and 10,000 blogs…”. Push them down the garbage chute. Don’t be seen with them in public.

5: How do you monitor social media for a client?

“Huh?” Hopefully your next step is obvious.

“Google alerts”. Not bad, but wait and see if they add in stuff like subscribing to Twitter searches and the like.

“I use a 3rd party tool”. Fine, but make sure they do more than plug in some keywords and wait for e-mails. A human being needs to review what the tool reports or its worthless.

6: How do you measure ROI?

“Oh, shut up”. Perfectly OK, especially if the expert turns purple for a moment first. They’re just sick of hearing this question, which means they’ve been around the block a few times.

“It’s complicated, but here’s a high-level view…”. Nice!!!

“I track clicks from Twitter”. Nope, sorry.

7: How do you build an audience?

“I auto-follow 20,000 people on Twitter”. If you’re OK with it, kick them in the groin for me. If not, nod politely and move on.

“I follow interesting, relevant people on Twitter, comment on relevant blog posts and try to get into the conversation”. Home run. Try not to weep with joy.

“We need to figure out the campaign first”. Good answer. Give them a hypothetical campaign to be sure, but clearly you’re on the right track.

8: Do you offer a guarantee?

“Yes, I’ll get you 1000 links and 20,000 clicks”. See number 7, first action.

“Yes, that I’ll work my butt off for you”. I like it.

“No, because we’re marketing to people, and it’s hard to say what they’ll like/not like, or what might happen in the world that will affect behavior”. Also good.

9: How did you learn all this stuff?

“Oh, I read this book I bought from Amazon.com”. Wargh. By the time that book went to print it was out of date. No go.

“I’m always learning”. Good answer.

“I read a lot of blogs, and try to use as many different tools as I can”. Also good.

“I go to conferences”. Yeahhhhhh. Might be OK. Answers to the other 9 questions should tell you.

10: How does social media impact SEO?

“It doesn’t”. Slap them and tell ‘em that’s from Ian.

“It builds links”. That’s half the answer.

“It builds relationships that turn into links later”. HIRE THEM NOW.

Bonus question: How often do you write?

“I hate writing”. Cough.

“Oh, I try to but I don’t have much time”. Cough. Cough.

“Every day”. DING DING DING. A winner!

There you go. An instant social media expert evaluator. Sort of like a Cylon Detector, but hopefully more effective.

By the way, print a copy of this. If you get word-for-word answers, you might think twice.

Yes, I hate the phrase social media. No reason to beat that dead horse any more.