Website Traffic From Social Media Sites

No matter what products that you sell online, you need traffic to your website. Traffic is absolutely essential to the success of any online business owner (and website), and the more of it that you can get, the better. It's something that you will want to learn and master if you want to get a constant stream of new traffic coming through.

In today's lesson, I want to go over some of the free "social" traffic strategies that you can use to drive lots of visitors to your website. They are all easy if you actually use them, but if you don't attempt and use them, how will you get traffic to your site? Here's the first way to get traffic to your site socially:

1) Social marketing
Social marketing is a very popular technique for marketing online. A lot of people are getting great results from using Facebook advertising, and I'm confident that you can do the same - but not necessarily from Facebook. There is Pinterest, Instagram, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Google+. So you're not limited to the social sites that you can market on.

There's also "social bookmarking". Some of the major social bookmarking sites are Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicious, and more. To ignore these sites and this strategy is to limit your overall income. So be sure to use them. Here's another way to drive traffic to your site:

2) Blog commenting
With blog commenting, all you're doing is responding to blog posts with a high quality response that has relevance to the blog post - and that can help people to solve a problem, or achieve a goal. There are tons of blogs online that you can do blog commenting on. Just make sure they're within your same niche.

You can find related blogs by visiting the blog directories online, or simply doing a simple Google search. I do this all the time in my business. But honestly, I find that by doing a simple Google search helps me to find some high quality blogs - faster than just by visiting a blog directory. Here's another way to get traffic to your site:

3) Podcasts
A podcast is simply an MP3 audio file that contains information on it. You can find most podcasts from the site called "iTunes" (it's owned by Apple). This is similar to video marketing, but in some ways it's much more effective. Unlike YouTube where you can display your website address at the bottom of your video... with Podcasts, you will have to repeat and re-state your website address throughout your podcasts. But this is a minor issue.

When you create podcasts, always use your own voice. Don't try to skimp through things by using a "text-to-speech" robot. The quality of such a device is incredibly horrible. It's unappealing, and will drive your podcast users somewhere else. So don't use the speech software - always use your own voice.

Take these 3 traffic tips and use them in your online business today. It will definitely be beneficial to you.

Good luck with getting traffic to your website today.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8087404

Social Media Marketing Strategies for Bloggers: Five Tips to Improve Your Facebook Engagement

Having trouble engaging your blogging community and your Facebook community?
If your fans are not interacting with your online brand, sharing your content, commenting and liking your post; you are missing out on a valuable free marketing strategy.

In this post I am going to teach you some social media marketing strategies on how to get more likes, comments, and shares to your blog or Facebook fan page. I am going to teach you five tips to improve your Facebook engagement.

#1 Keep your updates short
Studies show us that the shorter your post, the more engaging your post will be. We are living in a "microwave" society; everyone wants it quick, easy, and fast. Shorter posts will also make it easier to cross promote on sites such as Twitter which only allows a 140 character limit.

#2 Post engaging content
Post engaging and sharing content. Post content that Facebook users will get excited about and will immediately want to share with their friends. Such content includes but is not limited to images with quotes and motivational speeches, Post things that are pleasing to the eye and that will go viral. According to research images gets a higher edge rank than written statues updates. Most people are visual and they want pictures along with their book.

#3 Post at Ideal Times
Getting your Facebook post to the top of your fans newsfeed is essential for Facebook engagement. In order to do this you must post your content at the right time.

According to multiple studies you should post your content at the time where the traffic peaks. This time is usually around 1pm to 3pm.

You also want to make sure you post enough content in order to stay visible in your friend's newsfeed. You need to make sure your friends are seeing your content. Facebook tends to show your posts to the people who engage the most with your content and they may hide your content from others.

#4 Ask Questions
One sure way to improve your Facebook engagement to your social media marketing blog is to ask questions. Your audience will relate better to you if they feel you are "talking with" them and not "taking at" them. Your readers will respect you more if you ask for their perspective. A question is always followed by an answer, which simply means more comments!

#5 Coupons and discounts
Who doesn't like bargains and deals? Offer your blogging and Facebook community discounts and coupons that go hand in hand with your online brand. Offer $5.00 off coupons, offer special promotions, offering holiday discounts, etc.

Now it's your turn.
What do you think? Did you find these tips helpful? How do you keep your fans engaged? Please share your questions and comments in the box below.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7151750

How Small Businesses Can Leverage Social Media to Attract Loyal Customers

A recent survey by American Express OPEN found that 82% of small businesses in the United States are relying on word of mouth to acquire loyal customers and 44% of those surveyed currently use social media to help attract loyal customers. These findings leave little room to doubt that social media has come of age. The question for small businesses is no longer if or when to get active, but how to best leverage time and resources to get the most of their efforts.

Step One: Establish Goals and Create a Plan
Don’t get fooled, even the most shining and seemingly natural examples of social media execution are meticulously designed. Unless the brand happens to already be well known, nothing will happen by accident or chance. Sit down and establish goals as early on as possible. Have an open discussion with everyone involved to find out what you’re trying to accomplish. Is social media a means of customer service? Do you want to drive traffic to a website? Is PR important? Define what success looks like. Once there is a clear picture of the end goal, the team can move on to creating an action plan. The plan may include setting up new social networking accounts, re-establishing stale channels, and defining responsibilities amongst employees.

Step Two: Get Active and Start Experimenting
It’s a big mistake to assume that social media is a “build it and they will come” type of endeavor. Yes consumers want to have a relationship with the places (both on and offline) that they do business with, but even the most loyal of customers need some guidance. It’s a shame when business owners get excited about social media and enthusiastically create branded Facebook , YouTube, and Twitter channels, only to fail in taking the extra step need to promote all the work that has been done.

Some ideas to get the ball rolling:
•Optimize a website to encourage social sharing amongst visitors
•Integrate social media into an email marketing campaign
•Take advantage of in-store display advertising
•Place social icons EVERYWHERE (online and offline )
•Consider investing in Facebook and YouTube ads

Step Three: Drive Loyalty
Once a foundation for success has been built, it’s time to get creative and get in the trenches of the social web. This is where most of the heavy lifting is done.

Let’s focus on a couple of specific areas:

Outreach

Every brand, regardless of size or industry, has a community around it. In simple terms, these are the potential customers who fit a businesses targeted demographic. It’s imperative to find out where these people congregate online and what type of discussions they’re having. The ultimate goal is to become a part of the community and build up brand advocates.

Here are some good starting places:
•Google Blog Search and Technorati
•Icrerocket and Socialmention
•Online forums
•Search.twitter and YouTube
•Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg

When reaching out it’s crucial to remember that social media isn’t at all like traditional advertising. The goal isn’t to pound potential customers with an advertising message or a sales pitch. It happens all too often and it simply doesn’t work. Conversations that aren’t authentic are easy to pick out and can instantly hurt a brand’s reputation. It’s surprising to see that many businesses, both large and small, end up failing in this department. Stay helpful, stay sincere, and think twice about doing anything that might be considered spam.

Promotions

Customers are motivated by incentives. Give customers a reason to connect online and they will. Facebook deals, Foursquare specials, Tweet incentives, and online coupons fall into this category. One example would be setting up a contest where customers take part by taking photos (somehow related to the business) and then posting them on the businesses Facebook page.

Customer Service

A surefire way to turn short term customers into lifelong customers is to deliver outstanding customer service. Use social media to take advantage by monitoring conversations and jumping in when an opportunity to help or say thank you arises.

Step Four: Track Progress and Adopt Best Practices
Without tracking activity it’s difficult/near impossible to know if the business is moving towards the goals that it originally established. This can be as simple as keeping a record of metrics such as fans, followers, subscribers, traffic, direct sales, etc… to determine if progress is being made. After a period of several months it becomes easier to determine what works best and the business can begin to adopt best practices. It’s an ongoing process, but by following a predetermined plan over a span of time it becomes progressively easier to win over and keep loyal customers.

6 Blogging Tips to improve traffic to your Blog

At the end of 2010, just before breaking for the holidays, I had a conversation with my co-worker about our New Year’s resolutions, and we got onto the topic of our “work resolutions.” We both mentioned that we wanted to do more writing and blogging both for Engaging Times and our own personal brands. We agreed we’d be sort of a support system – like gym buddies, except for blogging.

There are countless benefits to building one’s personal brand. You raise your profile, along with your company’s. The goal is to be considered a thought leader in your space and develop a significant online and professional network.

Well, it’s now mid-March, and while I’m still no gym rat, my blogging resolution is where I have slacked the most. So in order to give myself and fellow blogger wannabes a jump start, I decided to put together a list of basic tips to follow when blogging.

1. Keep it short. A blog post doesn’t need to be more than 3 or 4 paragraphs. We’re used to getting our news in 140-charater bites, so a blog post much longer than 500 words isn’t likely to keep your readers’ attention. Think about when YOU start to lose interest when reading an article online.

2. Make it easy to read. Use bullets, bold font and short paragraphs to help your readers identify key themes and navigate easily through your post.

3. Choose a catchy title. What will people be searching for? Many will decide if they want to read further just based on the title, so make sure it grabs their attention.

4. Use links. You can keep the length of your post under control and enhance your content by linking to external information, rather than going into detail on your blog. Let the reader decide if they want to learn more. Choose to have your links open in a new window or tab so visitors aren’t taken away from your page.

5. Please, for the love of blog, PROOFREAD! I catch some flack around here for being the “grammar police,” and while I don’t expect everyone to have an AP Style Guide on hand at all times, you can avoid silly mistakes. Use spellcheck. Have a friend proofread. Don’t force me to write another post on the difference between their/there/they’re, your/you’re and its/it’s.

6. Choose a topic to blog about consistently. What subject is interesting to you personally, and how does that relate to your professional life? For those who don’t know me, I’m the resident PR girl. I’m interested in social media and digital marketing, so expect posts from me on how those themes interact. What topic is relevant to you?

6 Ways to Maximize the Use of Your 140 Character

Here are some tips for making the most of those few characters you get to use.

1) Use shorthand codes. BRB, LOL, RT, TY, etc. Some may call it tech speak or leet speak. Acronyms and abbreviations for commonly used words and phrases. Check out this list of popular Twitter shorthands and if you like to use more colorful shorthand there is also a NSFW shorthand list. That’s Not-Safe-For-Work for you shorthand beginners.

2) Be clear and concise. Make sure you are not being redundant. Remove any words that might be irrelevant to what you are trying to convey.

3) Use URL shortening. This one is pretty obvious and is even built in to Twitter. However, there are some URL shortening services that can save you a few more characters than TinyURL. I use IS.GD and another popular one is XR.COM which even allows you to customize the URL.

4) Use special symbol characters. You may not know it, but Twitter accepts more than just normal characters. You can actually create hearts, stars, smilies and other symbols that can represent words or ideas in just 1 character. TheNextWeb has created a great tool called TwitterKeys which allows you to have all these symbols at your fingertips.

5) Use labels. Labeling your tweet has some cool benefits. A label is like a tag at the beginning of your tweet. Your followers will know exactly what you are sharing right away and they may even increase your chances of being re-tweeted. Here are some examples… (Reading:, Stumbling:, Digging:, etc.)

6) Be simple. This is a writing tip from Copyblogger, “…simple words work better than big ones. Write ‘get’ instead of ‘procure.’ Write ‘use’ rather than ‘utilize.’ Use the longer words only if your meaning is so precise there is no simpler word to use.”

How-To Become a Kick Ass Blogger

Becoming a kick ass blogger is something many of us are trying to accomplish either personally, professionally, or both. The problem is that millions of people and businesses now have blogs, the good the bad and the ugly, and they are all competing with you for subscribers, comments, and overall attention. So the question is, what can you do to stand out from the crowd?

What should I write about?

Become your audience: What I mean by this is simple. Determine who your customer is, give him or her a name, and deliver them the content they are wanting to read. If you typical customer is female, age 28-42, married with 1.2 kids, watches the Food Network and reality TV, and is generally interested in family activities then write about topics that interest that person. Remember, not everything you write has to be directly tied to your product or service. Simply becoming a resource for your audience, developing trust, and keeping them coming back to your site is a benefit, both long term and short.

How do I get more comments?

1. Ask questions

2. Be Controversial

3. Leave part of the topic untouched

How can I get more people to find my blog?

1. Use the search tool to determine what keywords/phrases are most searched for your area of expertise.

2. Use those keywords in your page title, page URL, headers & body, and the description of the blog. This will help your SEO.

3. Use email marketing, both to your list and relevant rented lists. Offer these people something for joining such as a white-paper, eBook, free trial of a product, discounts, etc.

4. Publish your blogs on third party sites within your industry. This will expose your company, blog, products & services to a much larger audience. This also helps you establish authoritative back-links to your site which greatly enhances your SEO.