| Marketing using social media is nothing new. Businessmen all over the world have been doing this for decades. However, it was only after the advent of social networking websites that the virtually limitless possibilities of these sites were realized. After all, these sites naturally catered to people ? lots of them. Are you ready to send traffic to your site using social networking sites? Here are steps you should take: Join and become an active member. Don?t expect to use the traffic coming from social networking sites and just sit in the corner passively. If you want to get traffic from these sites, you have to be ready to participate. There's no reason to be hesitant. These sites are composed of very active communities and you'll love the dynamics here. Once you start, you'll enjoy it so much you'll find it's almost like second nature to you. Spruce up your profile page. Your profile page will say a lot about you and the business you run. Try to tailor your profile page to the type of website you have. If you have other social network memberships, use your profile page to link with your other social profiles. Do the same for sites and projects you might have. This lets you take advantage of the traffic clicking on your profile page and promote your website at the same time. This also lets you win more friends. Start building relationships. Got friends and colleagues who are members of social networking sites? There's your first batch of traffic for your website. Invite these friends and then begin expanding from there. Adding friends to your network is important for several reasons ? you get to become a familiar face or personality, you have a core group of people you can rely on for promotions and campaigns such as viral marketing and you get a good number who will happily visit your website and become part of your regular traffic. To take advantage of social networking sites, begin making friends. Look for members who can share interests related to your site or business. Majority of people who join social networking sites are friendly anyway so you can start sending them reminders each time you have a write-up or story. Utilize bulletins. Once you've gotten a good list of new friends, you'll probably have more reasons to use your bulletins. However, try not to advertise your site too much here. People go to bulletins to talk, share views and opinions and basically just to have fun. If you must use your bulletin to try to send traffic to your site, use it sparingly, like once a month or so. Keep things simple. Not everyone on your friends list will appreciate your sending them shouts every other day. Sometimes being too enthusiastic can backfire. Worse, it can make you look like a spammer, something you don?t want to happen considering how people dislike them. When using social networking sites, make it a priority to make friends and do business later. Hey, even seasoned businessmen first shake hands and make small talk before getting down to business. Your goal in using social networking sites is to build strong, reliable relationships, not to annoy and bore people. Let them have fun and they'll be more willing to follow you where you go. Using social networking sites If you're still not confident about using social networking sites, try to learn more using resources such as 'Videos', the video tutorial presented by The Barking Videos. You'll find advice on how to use social networking sites such as MySpace and send traffic to your website in no time. It's not the kind of task that will change your site overnight but it can help you improve your chances. |