Online Social Networking

Our blog marketing and search engine optimization series is under way.

In this ongoing series we are looking at blogs and blogging in connection with several online marketing channels:

• social networking sites
• social media sites
• search engine optimization

Quite obviously blogs are not laid out sequentially like a book. Even if you write in sequence, your material will be presented to the blog’s reader in reverse sequence. Therefore, I created this post to organize my blogging articles into a handy table of contents.

This is a good place to mention that I’m not writing a textbook or an all-encompassing reference on blogging and blog marketing. Rather, I’m raising issues that could be critical to your success and sharing my thoughts and opinions about them.

There are many books and blogs that deal extensively with the details of blogging, business networking and search engine marketing. I love reading such books, and as we progress, I’ll tell you about many of them.

Disclaimer

I am not giving you business direction or assuming any measure of responsibility for your business decisions. While I believe that my ideas are sound, it is you nevertheless who will determine your path and assume full responsibility for your business results.

Blog Marketing Articles

Top Reasons Why I Blog
Don’t Make This Mistake
Narrowing Blog Focus
Blogging and Search Engine Marketing
Blogs and Blogging for Fun and Profit
Blog Marketing
Before You Begin Blogging
Creating a Home for Your Blog
Web Hosting for Your Blog
To Blog, or not to Blog, that is the Question

SEO Training Articles

Keyword Research Paying Off Big
Website or Online Presence?

Blog Monetization

Blogs and Blogging for Fun and Profit

This page will be updated frequently. To return here again, bookmark the page in your browser or on your desktop —  or look for the Blog Marketing SEO Training link on the blog’s sidebar.

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The decisions you make and the actions you take before you set up your marketing blog are at least as important as the steps you take once your blog is up and running.

Proper planning can help you avoid many false starts and much backtracking.

Start by asking yourself basic marketing questions such as these:

• How will you monetize your blog? For ideas refer to Blogs and Blogging for Fun and Profit.
• What will you sell?
• Which are your target markets?
• Can you reach them through advertising? Offline business networking?
• Can you connect with them at social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Direct Matches, Yuwie or Ryze? While you’re building credibility with the search engines, you can use online social networking and forums to enlist subscribers and readers for your blog.
• What can you write about in your blog or what other content can you offer that will attract them?
• Which keywords are they searching for that are relevant to your project?
• Which keyword searches can you realistically compete for?
• How will you position your products and brand yourself?

Asking these questions up front will make it possible to develop a coherent plan of action, and we will consider them in coming weeks.

You will need to choose a home for your blog, and that raises another key question.

Will you join a blogging community such as Blogger.com or Wordpress.com — or will you host your blog independently? I explain in Creating a Home for Your Blog why serious bloggers usually prefer to host their sites independently, and later we’ll look at what that entails.

And you will also need to evaluate your marketing and technical skills. Where are you on the learning curve? What will it take to get up to speed? Will you require some amount of personal guidance to get off to the right start?

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Online social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook have become considerably heterogeneous over time. They support diverse agendas and activities.

One the other hand, social networking sites such as myYearbook or Linked In have retained their strictly social or business networking character.

Social Sites for Every Business

Business is embracing social networking, and most new social networking websites seem to lean more towards doing business than towards socializing.

I came across an excellent list of business networking sites and social media sites that will help you create a strong web presence for yourself or for your organization.

Inside CRM published a collection of 50 Social Sites That Every Business Needs a Presence On. The entries are listed in five categories:

1. Social Bookmarking Sites – such as reddit and Digg
2. Business Networking Sites — like Ryze
3. Niche Social Media Sites – including Sphinn and Tweako
4. General Social Media Sites — such as Wikipedia
5. Job Sites – like Yahoo! Hot Jobs

I don’t know whether their list will be updated periodically, but it is certainly an excellent jumping off point.

You can also consult Mashable’s Catalog of 350+ Social Networking Sites and Seth Godin’s Web 2.0 Traffic Watch List for additional ideas.

You Need a Strong Web Presence

Are you an established entrepreneur or manager?

Are you opening a small business, a network marketing business or a consulting practice?

Even if you’re an employee in a corporation, you need a solid web presence to comptete in today’s Internet-based world.

When somebody Google’s YOU or your niche, what will the search engine return?

More on search engines and search engine optimization coming in future articles. So don’t miss any posts. Register, it’s easy, or subscribe to my RSS feed!

At social networking sites we communicate and build relationships. We can also share websites and other content with each other.

At social bookmarking sites we primarily share websites and other content with each other and with search engines. However, we can also communicate and build relationships.

What is the difference between a social bookmarking site and a social networking site?

Our priorities. Online social bookmarking emphasizes content, while online social networking emphasizes relationships.

Benefits of Social Bookmarking Sites

If you publish a blog or own some other website, you probably want visitors, and backlinks too. Social bookmarking sites will help you in these ways.

• You share your site with the community. They visit it and rate it. You can form relationships that lead to quality backlinks for your site.
• Search engines take note that your site is bookmarked. Bookmarking is a form of recommendation. Search engines react favorably to your site’s presence in the community.

My Favorite Social Bookmarking Sites

The social bookmarking sites I use most often are StumbleUpon, Technorati, propeller, del.icio.us, Spicy Page and Digg. See the list on my sidebar and at Social Marker, a tool that streamlines the bookmark submission process.

I also use blog traffic sites, notably Entrecard and Link Referral. The latter can also be used to promote a static website. I’ve made valuable connections at Entrecard and have learned much from the blogs I visited there.

Regular participation at social networking sites will do wonders for your popularity. Reqular posting and participation at social bookmarking sites will do the same for your blogs and other websites.

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I strive to write upbeat online social networking posts. However, sometimes I have to publish a bad report.

I told you that I had found the social networking site Wowzza Disappointing. I decided to withdraw during Wowzza’s 10-day grace period, and I expected to receive a refund.

When my refund wasn’t issued after more than a week, I contacted Jim Vigilante, the site’s founder, who said that he would look into it for me.

Last week I wrote him again. This time I did not receive a reply.

If I eventually receive my refund, I’ll post a comment to this article to let you know. As of now both social networking sites, Wowzza and Zion 5, are suspect.

If you already belong to either of them, enjoy! No need to quit.

But if you haven’t joined them, you should consider taking your online social networking business elsewhere.

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My First Effort

I launched my Online Social Networking blog on November 6, 2007 with my first post, Here We Are.

I was a blogging and search engine optimization newbie.

You might remember my earlier post, “You don’t have to get it right. You just have to get it going!” I made a plan and got started.

My strategy was to attract readers at social networking sites such as MySpace and Yuwie, and at the same time build a strong presence in the search engines.

I chose to write about social networking because of the large amount of experience I had with online social networking and social networking sites, and I selected the name of this blog and its principal keywords accordingly.

My blog took form over a period of several months with a few false starts and reversals. I kept writing week after week and networking and strategizing while waiting for my search engine marketing to kick in.

I joined MyBloglog and Entrecard to connect with other bloggers and entice them to visit my site. At Entrecard I made new friends.

One, a gentleman named Marcus Hochstadt, has helped me enormously. Not only has Marcus given me lots of encouragement, but through a contest he organized and ran on his Internet Business Guide blog, he also helped me gain more than fifty good inbound links to my blog. This helped my Google Page Rank.

Moving Up in Google

Page rank is Google’s measure of a site’s authority. It’s a major factor in Google’s determination of a site’s position in search results.

Having your site shown by Google and other search engines on page one of the results when people search for your targeted keywords is highly desirable and is the primary goal of search engine optimization.

As my credibility increased, and my page rank went from zero to one and from one to two I moved up in the search engine results and saw large increments in the number of visitors Google was sending my way each day.

I started tracking my blog’s traffic late January using Google Analytics. At that time Google was already providing me with a couple of visitors per day. The following chart shows how my results improved over time. Click on the chart to view a larger much larger version.

On a good day now I receive about 30 visitors. This will continue to grow over time, and I’ll keep you posted.

You Can Do It Too

I’m teaching a free course on blogging, search engine optimization and social media marketing. You’ll learn all the techniques I’ve discovered and how you can apply them yourself.

A wide range of social media marketing training courses is available at My Private Classroom for Marketers.

Subscribe to my newsletter at my free social media training site.

If you’re interesed in harnessing the synergy of blogging, social networking sites and search engine optimization, visit my Blog Marketing and SEO Training.

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Seth Godin’s Web 2.0 Traffic Watch List

My interest in social media has evolved substantially over the past year.

My love for online social networking and social networking sites is not something new, but my love for blogging and appreciation for social bookmarking, content sharing and article submission sites certainly are.

Through my conference calls I now provide social media marketing training in addition to seminars on search engine marketing and using social networking sites.

As I mentioned in my recent post, Social Networking Site Catalog, “I launched this blog to share my passion for online social networking and my experiences at social networking sites. I never intended to assemble a catalog. There are already too many good ones out there.”

One of the world’s top marketers and author of marketing books, Seth Godin, provides a catalog of 952 top social media sites, Seth Godin’s Web 2.0 Traffic Watch List. It will help you know what’s hot and what’s not.

Here are the top ten as I write this post.

1. youtube.com
2. myspace.com
3. orkut.com
4. en.wikipedia.org
5. ebay.com
6. facebook.com
7. fotolog.com
8. flickr.com
9. friendster.com
10. photobucket.com

Put content in the right places, and you will attract other users and search engines like a magnet. If you’re into marketing, that’s exactly what you want.

For more about social media marketing come to my tele-seminars and consider joining Diane Hochman and me at My Private Classroom for Marketers. We’ll help you, but rather than spoon feed you, we’ll “teach you how to fish”.

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One of the social networking sites I’ve used recently is Zion 5.

I’m writing this post to let you know that the site’s founder Darren Merrett did not pay me my Pro commission for March despite several attempts to contact him late April.

I think it’s fine to use the site as a free member or even as a Pro Member as long as you don’t care about your commissions.

If there are new developments, I will let you know.

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Mashable Catalog of Social Networking Sites

I launched this blog to share my passion for online social networking and my experiences at social networking sites. I never intended to assemble a catalog. There are already too many good ones out there.

Consider the Mashable list of 350+ social networking sites arranged by category with a brief description of each site. It’s very well done.

Or consider the Go2Web20 complete Web 2.0 social media directory. What an undertaking!

I will from time to time point you to such lists and meta-sites to stimulate your interest and facilitate your research.

You can also find helpful information and resources on the sidebar of this blog.

I will continue to focus on writing thought-provoking articles and sharing my ideas about social media marketing, social networking sites and personal development.

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Tonight Diane Hochman speaking on a free My Private Classroom webinar revealed the top seven Internet screw-ups of the average marketer.

My favorite was following the flock.

Facebook is hot. Very hot. There are scores of top networkers on the Facebook scene.

Is that where you want to be? Do you want to follow the flock to Facebook in the hope of successfully competing with some of the world’s greatest networkers?

You might be successful. But instead, why not carve out a niche for yourself somewhere else? There are hundreds of social networking sites. Why not lead the flock instead of following?

Whenever everybody zigs, be a leader and zag. If they zag, you zig.

Diane made a number of other excellent points. Then she summed up her insightful and inspiring talk with the following advice. Above all, you should use common sense and be yourself.

For an invitation to the next free My Private Classroom webinar, complete the subscription form on my Social Networking Project site devoted to online social networking and social media marketing training.

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What is Wowzza?

From my perspective Wowzza is thousands of networkers running around like chickens with their heads cut off — quite a messy sight — or should I say site?

The situation became so messy that site founder Jim Vigilante felt compelled to axe the site’s top feature, sending direct messages to all contacts in one fell swoop. Members were bombarded by spam in their in-boxes and the latest greatest pre-launches. Something had to be done. Now members are limited to 50 bulk mail messages per day.

Incidentally Wowzza is extremely slow, but I’m sure that this problem will eventually be addressed and corrected.

Let me remind you of my earlier post, Online Social Networking Entering New Phase, in which I said, “Use social networking sites to network, to make new friends, to make new business contacts, and to make deals. Do not use them only to get paid by them. If you want to make money, doing business through these sites has much more potential than creating income streams from the sites themselves.”

I also said, “Join, use and refer people to sites that you enjoy, that offer the services you want, and that attract the types of people you wish to network with.

“Do not join sites because you are impressed by their hyped-up revenue sharing plan. Avoid paid membership sites unless they are the only ones that provide the services you require and attract the clientele you seek.”

Since I believe that there’s nothing particularly unique about Wowzza, I’m not going to pay $32.95 for the privilege of getting other people to do the same, just to make a buck.

In case you’re not already receiving enough spam or you’re desperate to get information on the pre-launch du jour, Wowzza may be just the social networking site for you.

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On April 4 in Building a List with Online Social Networking I discussed the role of online social networking in permission-based marketing.

When you add a friend at one of the social networking sites, you are adding that person to your list, and at the same time you’re adding yourself to his or her list. It’s reciprocal list building.

You’ll readily agree that a tiny list is not likely to get you far. Right?

You must build a large list. But how large? And do you focus on quantity or quality?

Whether you have 100 or 500 or 5,000 people on your friends list, you aren’t going to be able to have a regular intimate dialog with all of them. So why opt for smaller rather than larger?

In Stan Relihan’s interview with Ron Bates, the most connected networker on LinkedIn with around 40,000 direct connections, Ron answers the question quite succinctly. He says that “there is quality in quantity”.

In other words, the larger your list, the more people there will be who are just the ones you’re looking to meet. Some relationships will remain superficial while others will become strong friendships.

Ron also discusses the importance in business today of what he refers to as an “additive online presence”. Before somebody does business with you they’re likely to Google you to see what comes up. That’s your online presence. Each place you network, post an article or bookmark a site adds to that presence. This you may recall is a subject we touched on last month in Social Networking Sites: Your Web Presence and is frequently discussed at My Private Classroom for Marketers.

I encourage you to listen to Stan’s interview with Ron Bates and Stan’s other online social networking podcasts. You’ll find loads of gems.

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