I can’t stress enough, how important it is to learn Social Media Marketing to help increase your sites popularity and Authority rank. I started doing this a while back, but I’m now doing this as a daily routine for most of my sites… all but this one, unfortunately! 
(only due to the lack of time)
I use Auto Social Poster on a few of my sites for testing, but I’m also using Jack Humphrey’s Web 2 Submitter. I like both, but I’m finding Auto Social Poster to be more convenient… much more, to be honest. As long as you use Wordpress, anyway! Plus, Web 2 Submitter isn’t really very powerful, in the end. I haven’t checked into timing issues, but I’m guessing that it’s not REALLY saving me much time, in the end.
Now some Affiliate Marketers may think that this is useless… well, it is IF you’re simply using “throw away” landers (mini-sites/landing pages) that you’re not sure about… (testing purposes, not done, etc)
But Social Media Marketing (or Social Marketing) is a great way to get MORE traffic to your site, which, in turn, will create more sales… in most cases in some cases. You still need to focus on SEO and your Target audience, no matter what.
Social Media Marketing starts with the understanding of Web 2.0… But, we won’t really dig into that too much as there’s entirely too much information out there these days. To keep it very simple, look at sites such as Digg, MySpace, FaceBook, etc. Do you see anything in common with each of these sites? Users control them… That’s the difference. Back in the day, forums, email, chat (including IM) and various other ways to connect with users were pretty much the only way to be “connected’ with each other…
Things have changed now. Content is king, without a doubt.
Users can share information with others very easily. They can connect with others and share links, without a problem. Viral Marketing can be created on YouTube for free, by ANYONE!
Entire Websites, Pages, Videos, Stories, Pictures… they can all be sent to others to view so easily these days that it would be insane to NOT take advantage of Web 2.0 and Social Marketing.
Now imagine if you had a blog, similar to this one, that could easily be monetized and shared with Millions of people? Wouldn’t that be great? Maybe you already do? But landing pages or Static websites are not the only ways to run Affiliate Programs…and that’s my point.
Does that mean you have to have a blog to use Social Marketing? Of course not! What you need to learn is “Social Media Optimization”…
Ok, before I get you scared and make you want to leave, let’s see how simple Social Media Optimization is…
Wikipedia has Social Media Optimization listed as:
Social media optimization (SMO) is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites. Methods of SMO include adding RSS feeds, adding a “Digg This” button, blogging and incorporating third party community functionalities like Flickr photo slides and galleries or YouTube videos. Social media optimization is a form of search engine marketing.
Social media optimization is in many ways connected as a technique to viral marketing where word of mouth is created not through friends or family but through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites. In a similar way the engagement with blogs achieves the same by sharing content through the use of RSS in the blogsphere and special blog search engines such as Technorati.
This is pretty simple, right? I mean if you have a blog setup, you more than likely see this as “pie”. Simple stuff.
I find that YouTube.com is definitely the ULTIMATE Viral Marketing method online. You can create a Video (with your URL in the intro, end and anywhere else…just not “too much”) that shows someone how to do something and get plenty of traffic for little effort. Select the right tags/keywords and make sure your URL is posted in the Author box, too, and you’re practically guaranteed traffic. Select the right Market and post up a Video that helps that crowd, and you’re guaranteed to get traffic…
The bottom line is, you need to understand that Social Media Marketing (SMM) is another way to boost up traffic to your Website.
Using sites such as Digg, Facebook, YouTube, etc. can really help Sales in the long run. Use these sites effectively. Do NOT spam these sites with your own links…
As a matter of fact, I find it useful to create multiple accounts on these sites and promote a certain set of “sites” with a few accounts, and another “set” with another few accounts. This means creating multiple accounts on every site and, for example, promoting Real Estate websites with one set of accounts, and Healthy related Websites with another set of accounts. This way you’re staying organized and staying under the radar.
* DO NOT SPAM THESE SITES.
Too many people believe that these sites were created for Webmasters. THEY WERE NOT! These sites were created for USERS!
Good luck with your SMM (Social Media Marketing) and use your time wisely!
