Using Social Media to Promote your Website and Attract More Traffic

Social media is an effective way to market yourself and your company. It is kind of like going to a party and working the room, getting to know as many interesting people as you can and then be prepared to get involved. Jump in and answer questions, attend events, make friends, chat and have fun. Don't be afraid to share things about yourself, your position, company and your goals. At this point, you want to develop relationships - not sell! This is a huge turn-off initially, no matter how slick your pitch may be, it will be recognized for what it is.

Many digital entrepreneurs enjoy and understand the advantage of socializing online but the number one thing that I am hearing today is that if you want to be successful online, you must be prepared to step away from the computer and establish meaningful real-life connections with those in your industry. Go to meetings, start groups with other professionals, get involved socially. You can and should follow up with a brief e-mail, once you have invested some time nurturing a relationship but social means just that! Network, reach out, be pro-active about the direction you want to go and you will build a solid reputable foundation, seeds for success!

That said, social networking is a great form of advertising if it is done right. Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in, You Tube, Delicious, Digg, Flickr, Bookmarking, Forums and of course Blogs, are just a few of the social avenues that you have to choose from. It is best to avoid spreading yourself too thin however. Concentrate on setting up and maintaining fewer social outlets - channel your energy into sites that are suited to your needs. This decision should be based on your initial social media plan. Some industries, depending on the company size, goals and strategies, simply do better on certain social media sites.

The option to remain anonoymus or disquise your identity entirely will not give you the notoriety you deserve. As any social guru knows, reputation matters! You are followed, friended, poked and recommended so if no one knows who you are, you won't get the credit that you deserve. Or heaven forbid, you may not show up on top of the organic results on the SERP (search engine results page) when a potential customer initiates a search.

To speed up some of the basic time consuming data entry involved with social networking and since social media accounts ask many of the same questions I would suggest creating a word file with the following information that you will simply cut and paste as needed-

• Create a user id, email address or handle that accurately represents your business or what you want to be known for - don't forget those key words!
• Take an awesome photo of yourself or find an image that reflects your style to upload for your profile image - most of the time you have an opportunity to crop
• With relevant keywords in mind, think of a business name and short catchy phrase that accurately reflects your company's mission
• Write a brief bio, about yourself and company if applicable. Always remember key word rich!
• More and more sites like Face Book and Linked-in allow you to edit your "public" profile to include your name or company name, assuming it is still available, so your profile will appear when googled
• Have your resume and links to any blogs or other social media accounts handy, especially if you are looking for work
• And don't forget those "connections" - only the ones with good things to say of course.. Time to build some healthy, relevent backlinks, compose a short e-mail to send to your connections, friends, followers, and affiliates proposing that you work together by swapping links. Be careful though, only link to reputable sites, .org and .gov are great ones but there are many that have the potential to bring you lots of free traffic.
• You can also build some really good back links by setting up accounts on sites like tipdrop.com and squidoo.com, write posts, articles or answer questions that you can then link to each other for more clicks! Many of these sites also have ways to monetize too, by adding amazon products, etc.
• Social Media is quite different that SEO or SEM - which is optimizing a site using a variety of methods so it comes out on top when someone initiates a search using a search engine (AKA Organic or Natural result as opossed to a Paid or Sponsored one)
• Get socialing and have fun doing it! If you want to increase your site traffic then you must also be a cordial host so people will want to seek you out
• For more tips on how to make money and attract more traffic blogging, be sure to read Blogging for Cash!