Shameless Self Promotion with Social Media
Recently I've been getting a lot of questions from co-workers and friends about Facebook & Twitter and other social media and how it can be used to promote their websites and online business. I work in the media business and the newspapers are looking to grow readership and ultimately drive traffic to their websites. In these lean times people are also looking for ways to self promote in non traditional methods and emerging trends without spending any money.
Here are some basic social media sites and tips to driving traffic and readership on your website:
1. Start a Blog - In the fast paced world of micro-blogging, traditional blogs are still a relevant form of social media. Blogs that inform and help people are worth reading. And Opinion based witting is perhaps the most popular form of blogging today. With everything you do you should try and keep you Blog on topic and with a general purpose. Of course with Blogging the hardest thing is to keep it going, so set some realistic deadlines for your own content, and be consistent.
2. Twitter - Your opinion in 140 characters or less, AKA micro-blogging. Despite the hype surrounding twitter, it continues to grow and is a great way to engage your readers. From my perspective the sheer speed of the conversation and the ability to market yourself directly to people who want to follow you, has amazing potential for self promotion. If your new to the web and want basic intro to twitter , here's a great link: Twitter in Plain English
3. Facebook & Myspace - The king and queen of online social media sites. Myspace has been losing ground to facebook for some time now and both are losing ground to Twitter, both are still great sites for narcissistic self promotion. The keys here is to keep your personal life separate form your business life. In facebook, create a group as opposed to an account and invite others to join. Again, stay on topic, consistent, and up to date with your postings.
4. YouTube - Nothing goes viral like video - YouTube has become so popular and grown so fast, that they seemed to have forgotten a business model, and are losing tons of money just to keep themselves going. This free video service is an easy way to display corporate ads, but unless your ads are really good no one will want to watch them, so consider creating videos that can teach, inform and entertain.
5. All the rest - Flickr, Digg, Feedburner, Delicious, etc, the list goes on and is always expanding, spend some time online reading and finding the tools or sites that will work best for you and your business goals.
One of the keys to effectively using these streams is to engage your readers, be authentic, and consistent, don't be a spammer, but give your audience a reason to read your posts or watch your videos.
Here are some basic social media sites and tips to driving traffic and readership on your website:
1. Start a Blog - In the fast paced world of micro-blogging, traditional blogs are still a relevant form of social media. Blogs that inform and help people are worth reading. And Opinion based witting is perhaps the most popular form of blogging today. With everything you do you should try and keep you Blog on topic and with a general purpose. Of course with Blogging the hardest thing is to keep it going, so set some realistic deadlines for your own content, and be consistent.
2. Twitter - Your opinion in 140 characters or less, AKA micro-blogging. Despite the hype surrounding twitter, it continues to grow and is a great way to engage your readers. From my perspective the sheer speed of the conversation and the ability to market yourself directly to people who want to follow you, has amazing potential for self promotion. If your new to the web and want basic intro to twitter , here's a great link: Twitter in Plain English
3. Facebook & Myspace - The king and queen of online social media sites. Myspace has been losing ground to facebook for some time now and both are losing ground to Twitter, both are still great sites for narcissistic self promotion. The keys here is to keep your personal life separate form your business life. In facebook, create a group as opposed to an account and invite others to join. Again, stay on topic, consistent, and up to date with your postings.
4. YouTube - Nothing goes viral like video - YouTube has become so popular and grown so fast, that they seemed to have forgotten a business model, and are losing tons of money just to keep themselves going. This free video service is an easy way to display corporate ads, but unless your ads are really good no one will want to watch them, so consider creating videos that can teach, inform and entertain.
5. All the rest - Flickr, Digg, Feedburner, Delicious, etc, the list goes on and is always expanding, spend some time online reading and finding the tools or sites that will work best for you and your business goals.
One of the keys to effectively using these streams is to engage your readers, be authentic, and consistent, don't be a spammer, but give your audience a reason to read your posts or watch your videos.
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