How to successfully use social media sites for marketing.

What is Social Media?

Social Media is part of the Internet 2.0 revolution that focuses more on user created websites rather than corporate websites. The use of social media sites to share thoughts, opinions, bookmark, videos and photos etc has increased exponentially, and every day you see a new social media ‘idea’ surfacing. With billions of visitors to them they are also becoming a lucrative source of income for their owners. Currently the most popular social media sties are:

• Facebook – this is almost like a combination of a photo sharing site, blog and journal and is one of the most popular social media sites currently.
• MySpace – similar to Facebook but perhaps aimed more at the teenage market – it focuses more on music . It is far more customizable than Facebook allowing you to add ‘stlyes’ using standard HTML to create varied and interesting pages.
• Twitter – essentially a combination of a text message and a blog, this simply site allows you to send snippets of text to all your ‘fans’ – has become very popular with celebrities.
• YouTube – the biggest social media site that allows you to share videos – some are personal, some instructional and some are simply funny! Some people even make a decent living by creating their own channels.
• Flickr – one of the many sites out there that allow you to upload and share your photo with friends and family.
• LinkedIn – this is more of a professional social media site that allows you to share information with colleagues etc.
• Blogger – basically an online Journal that allows you to make a daily entry on any subject you want.

Growing Subscribers

All of the sites above are not there simply to provide a service. They are there to make money! There are different ways they make money ranging from Google Adsense income, to advertising and even to selling ‘add-ons’ to games that you can play on these sites – the revenue they create is potentially massive and some of these sites are valued in the billions.

This revenue will increase as these sites become more popular – they have gone from being sites for teenagers or geeks into sites that are becoming essential parts of everyone’s life, and thus the subscriber base is growing larger every day as all ages begin to join and understand the,

Marketing on social media sites

With billions of visits to social media sites every day, there is obviously a huge potential for marketing opportunities. Major corporations are setting up their own social media accounts, while other individuals are capitalizing on the opportunities that these sites can give any enterprising individual.

One way to look at all of the social media sites is as an untapped (relatively) source for potential clients – as a lot of these potential clients have similar views, they will congregate in groups and fan clubs thus giving power to those who are able to target these groups.

Also – as these individuals surf the web, it is becoming more prevalent for them to share cool websites on their social media – just look at all the Youtube Videos you’ll see shared on Facebook and you can see that the traffic these videos will get through social media sites can grow virally as more and more people share or ‘like’ the videos.

So how do I tap into social media marketing?

It is not easy – there are millions of people already doing this, and a lot of them doing it very successfully. There are some techniques for the amateur that will help, but generally it will take a lot of dedication and hard work. Here are some techniques that are working for many people:

• Find a niche – if you choose a popular subject such as Harry Potter you will find there is a vast client base, but you will find that social media is already saturated with sites aiming to make money out of them, so unless you create a totally unique Harry Potter site, you’re unlikely to find a client base. Finding the right niche, that no one has thought about, can lead to literally thousands of hits to your website, thus increasing your revenue potential.
• Quality – creating a blog that is poorly written will not win you any fans. Providing a page full of text, however well written, with no formatting, or no other media is also unlikely to get you visits – the key is to write key well written information in a accessible way, and make people want to read more. If you can get people to share your quality site and become a fan of your site, then you’re on your way to success – you have to continue to produce quality work though, as there are thousands if not millions of quality writers and entrepreneurs on the web.
• Networking – it works in ‘real’ life and it works in ‘online’ life. The more you show an interest in others, in their work, their writing etc and show that you really care about what you write about, the more likely you will get a following. Simply providing a link to a website on a forum or group and not participating in any other way will not work – I’ve found that people like to get to know you, like to know that you’re not simply there to promote your site but you actually are interested in getting to know people and reading other people work – it’s a matter of trust and respect – the more people trust and respect you the more likely they will share your work – just like in real life, you have to constantly work at this online.

What sites should I write on?

There are a lot of arguments about where you should write and what should be your key writing forum; each of us will have different views but the main underlying concept of how to ‘write’ on the web is the same.

One of the best ways is to have a ‘circle’ of four or five sites that you consistently update and write on. Have one of these writing sites as the hub of all the others and create all your main articles on this site. Them, use the other sites to give an introduction to your article and provide a ‘back link’ to the main article.

For example, I tend to write a lot of articles on Hubpages and then use blogger, Xomba and a few other sites to create an introduction to these sites – it gives me more opportunity to have my work viewed and hopefully leads to more visits to my main article. I then promote the main article as much as possible using SEO and more than that by posting to Facebook and other media sites where possible (Digg.com, Stumbleupon.com etc).

I try and find similar blogs, forums and Facebook Groups and then participate in these for a while before suggesting my sites – as I post my Hubpages to my Facebook account, I do notice that as people add me as a friend, once they get to know me on a group, I do see some increased traffic as people share my work – thus often I don’t even have to post a link to my sites in the groups.

Some of the key sites I write on:

• Hubpages.com
• Squidoo.com
• Xomba.com
• Blogger.com

Conclusion

Like anything in life, the road to riches on the internet is not an easy one. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication, and even then it can take years to see any decent income. With so many competitors you have to try and show that you are different and unique and use this to promote your work.

You will not get rich in a day, or even a year but with dedication, hard work and a lot of social interaction on social media sites you could one day earn a decent residual income on the web!

OK so you've read this, what now?

Well firstly and foremost, you should go out and share this site on Facebook *grin*. Seriously though, you have nothing to lose except your time - so why not try it - monitor your results and see if you get a significant increase in traffic - if you do, then great - come back and let me know - if you don't, well let me know too!

Good luck!