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We move in different networks to create our own network. But, why do we want to create networks?

There may be a lot of reasons to create a network. But if you think closely and eliminate all those unnecessary points; you will end up with three bullets.

Bullet 1: To let others know about my blog.

Bullet 2: To eventually get a link from their blogs so that you get better ranking and PR love along with some love from more visitors.

Bullet 3: Other reasons that you are yet to discover.

And now look at your own blog:

How many of us have been able to write at least 30 substantial posts in our blog in last 30 days!

I am not talking about those who have just begun blogging or those who are running a group blog. I am talking about lonely bloggers like you me and Adam who depend on themselves after living a hectic schedule (OMG, I need a break from my day’s job) to write a post.

Why don’t you invite other bloggers in your niche to write a guest post in your blog?

Why not?

1. You get quality content without writing even a single word! If the content is duplicate, do not publish it (normally guest posters do not write duplicate content - they must live up to their reputation.)
2. Linking out is never an issue - and if you think the linked site is not worth it, just do not publish the post or turn them no-follow. But please, do not make a link no-follow without asking the author - this is unethical.
3. You get another blogger to promote your blog - if you publish my guest post, I would love to promote that post in my blog and other social networks. And this, in turn would promote your blog in its totality.
4. You actually create a long lasting relationship with another blogger - no social network can help you to create such bonds.
5. Your readers get the taste of a fresh blood (yummy).
6. Come on, your readers are not going anywhere - they read this post because it was published in your blog.

So why not ask for guest posts?

Do you think that SEO is into the same track too - like SEO 2.0?

Yes - advanced SEO had always been there - the SEO 2.0.

So, what does SEO 2.0 look like - goldfish in the wild or a zebra in an aquarium?

In traditional SEO, the main focus had been to improve search engine ranking for targeted keywords and getting as many visitors as possible. That’s it - traditional SEO stopped working there. And in traditional SEO, the main focus had been linking in and linking out and fixing keywords in the Meta Description and H1s.

But in SEO 2.0, the whole scenario is changing.

Now, the main focus is on visitors and their needs and overall experience in a website. It is about creating an environment and a platform for social communication. Webmasters are confident about one thing, if they can satisfy the visitors, search engines (read Google) would be bound to send them more traffic.  And thus, advanced SEOs are not writing title tag for search engines; they are just defining the page and writing the content to satisfy the visitors. Now SEO is visitor-centric.

And another most important aspect of SEO 2.0 is that people do not fully depend on search engines to get traffic. The concentration has shifted to traffic long tail. And the traffic long tail generated from social networks is getting more importance. However, there had been lots of debates on the issue whether those visitors are convertible into business or not. And it solely depends on the environment you provide in your website. Some people are successfully using them to increase sales and some people are just wasting their bandwidth.

Going local to be a global player! That’s the best part of SEO 2.0 where the webmasters focus on local visitors.

Being human from machine: “Who are you” is as important as the product you offer - communicate - convince - sell. Web is no more just an information source. Yu got to give it a human touch.

Some SEOs do that.

What else? Write a comment and get a link…

Move on to any social media or networking website and you would surely find that some people are always available there and some of them are hyper active. In fact, you would surely meet some social media optimizers or marketers out there.

Is it really worth hiring a social media optimizer or marketer to promote your site or blog out there?

Does it sound like a silly question? I understand - today, it is like asking if you should hire a SEO expert to optimize your site or not!

But the answer may not be so simple. Let’s take a look:

Would you hire just any public relation company or executive to manage or sustain your brand name or identity? If your answer is no, why do you think that any social media marketer would be good enough to promote your business!

A public relation group is hyperactive when your brand is in big soup - the same thing does not happen with a social media marketer. As a part of their responsibility, most of them represent your website in different social networks throughout the year.

They actually become your company’s face to the public. Are you keeping any track of their activity? Did you consider the point if that person is qualified enough in your domain? If he or she is just a marketer, they might not be able to properly communicate with other people in your niche. It is like employing a literature student to answer forum questions on Google’s Algorithm (search - find - rephrase - answer = cool model and good money!!).

What to look for in a social media marketer and optimizer?

1. Domain expertise: he or she must know about the product and the industry.
2. Name as an expert: If he or she has a name in your niche as a resource person, he would just be a great marketer. I think he has got some marketing skill.
3. Overall web presence: A blogger in your niche can be the best social media marketer (provided, he has enough experience in social media). You can also find out if he or she participates in different forums in your niche or not. Take advantage of his or her social presence - that’s why you are paying him.
4. Social media optimization does not mean adding a few bookmarking buttons in each page. What else do they offer?
5. DIY - yes - you can do it yourself. If things seem too much time consuming, just select one or two niche networks and spend at least half an hour everyday. But don’t forget to learn the art and science of better communication.
6. Experience: Do I really need to write anything on this point!

Did I miss something? Why don’t you write a comment?

Whenever, someone talks about web 2.0, the very next term they use is ‘social media marketing’. And it is so fashionable in these days that everyone just jumps into it. And most commonly people think that “social media marketing” means simply adding up as many bookmarking buttons as you can along with adding up as many people as you can in your social network friend list.

To the most they take the pain to send a common message to everyone like “you have a very interesting and informative blog. Please visit my blog/site too; thanks”. I have received this message a lot of times just like you in mybloglog or blogcatalog.

And if you talk about Twitter (undoubtedly a very powerful networking site) you would get lots of followers even if you do not update your account at all.

I talked to one of the self declared social media marketer and he said, “at least you get a chance to be visited by a fellow blogger who may like your content and …”! Does it really make sense?

Mindless promotion is simply mindless promotion - no excuse is enough to support your cause behind such mindless and senseless promotion (or should I say spamming!).

First thing first - ask yourself, if your business or your client’s business is ready for social media marketing or not!

The very next and most obvious question is “which are the parameters to decide if a website is ‘social network ready’ or not”!

This is undoubtedly a very complex situation. Here are some simple questions that may help you to understand some parts of it:

1. Who are you?
2. Do you provide a platform for interaction?
3. Do you have something interesting for people to talk about?
4. Is your target market roaming in a specific social network?

These four questions, to the most, may show you the tip of the iceberg only - you must delve deep into it to find an answer.

Things to remember:

1. You are dealing with real people and it is always safe to put your best feet forward. These people have their voice and ground to talk about you - so, be careful. You are lucky, if they just ignore you.
2. Do not jump into social media marketing unless you are ready for it.
3. No product is for everyone - find out your niche and their den and then be one of them before you start promoting your product.

The most common link building strategy employed by most of the seo companies is to add a few resources or links page and rush out in the web to find opportunities for reciprocal link building. To the most they develop a few complimentary websites and go for ‘three way’ or ‘four way’ link building.

However, try to think about it from a different perspective. When you are using your mother site for link building (in case of two way reciprocal linking), aren’t you putting your website’s future at stake? Don’t you think search engines have all the rights to penalize your site? It is not always possible for you to monitor the neighbors you are creating in this process.

The second way, where webmasters are using complimentary websites for three way or four way link building, is a bit secured. At least, you do not put your mother site’s future directly at stake. However, there is always a chance that smart search engines like Google would track a linking pattern. But it is still more secured than reciprocal link building. At the same to, you would need to spend a lot of time to develop the complimentary websites and gain some PR.

You would even find some webmasters who solely depend on article marketing to improve search engine ranking. They submit articles to different directories and if these articles are good enough they get syndicated by other websites. However, if you track the progress of an article marketing campaign, you would see that, the syndicators do not always link to your website directly. On the contrary, they link to the article directory as the source of the article. To add to this, they often strike out any link embedded in the body of the article. Thus you do not get full value of article syndication. To add to this, you would hardly find more than 15 to 20 article directories worth submitting. And the best of them do not allow you to put a link inside the article body. So, what is the value? And, as far as my experience goes, one link from one domain is good enough and thus there is hardly any need to publish more than one article in a directory.

In all these situations, you actually end up in a breakeven status - 1:1.

Let’s rethink our link building strategy - can we be more strategic in our link building effort! What should be an ideal link building strategy where the ROI would be more than 1:1!

For example, a successful link bait or networking offers better ROI. But you cannot say for sure that at least 1 out of 5 link baits would be successful.

What else?

Ever since Web 2.0 became popular in 2004, numerous theories and suggestions have flooded the internet. But basically, Web 2.0 is the using the internet for other purposes than simple business websites. It brings back the human factor on the internet. Social networking, shared multi media, and online collaboration are all part of Web 2.0. Primary tools include Wiki sites, YouTube, “live face” technologies, and blogs. But in this article, we will focus on SEO for YouTube.

Currently, YouTube accounts for more than half of all online videos watched in North America particularly the United States. Your YouTube videos can be easily found in Google search results similar to normal web pages. This means that your video can attain the top spot in just a number of days provided you use the right SEO technique for it. Here are some tips on how you can do this:

1.       Use long tail keywords on your title – you need to use at least three words in your title. Make sure that the important words are in the same arrangement as people would type them. Most of the time, “how to” is a safe choice because it is one of the most popular search phrases used in Google.

2.       Think of your “tags” as keywords – select search terms that people will most likely use and arrange these words appropriately. Don’t use random keywords separated by commas because you will get better results when you use full length phrases because this is the way people search for information.

3.       Choose your description carefully – although the description box offers the most freedom, you need to choose words that will work well. It can begin with something like “Learn how” to be followed by sentences that are rich in keywords.

There are now various tips on how you can utilize Twitter for marketing your business but basically, it all comes down to monitoring and getting the attention of influencers online. You will not only be able to find out what the needs and opinions of your target market, you can also grab their attention through networking as well. Twitter will enable you to enter the consciousness of interested users which will build up your brand and customer loyalty over the long run.

Obviously, Twitter is popular because it is a traffic generation tool; you can place links on profiles as well as conversations. However, Twitter can provide many other benefits as well including lead acquisition and personal branding. Below is the list of other ways you can use Twitter to your advantage:

Viral Marketing –Twitter will spread your message quickly if your friends and other users “tweet” about it.

Feedback – with the amount of people using Twitter, you can instantly get another perspective if you need feedback on your web design or for your business strategy. Although, you might not get 100% decent replies, the collective intelligence you will receive is bound to provide some benefits for you.

Hire People – if you need the services of a marketer, a programmer, or an SEO expert, Twitter can help. Just send out a message asking users for their recommendations and you will get a good response.

New Friends – similar to other social networking sites, Twitter has a feature that lets you befriend other people you find interesting. You will be able to tract their messages so you can become updated on the latest news and events. Make an effort to connect with users outside your circle of friends.

Customer Notification – you can set up a Twitter Feed which will allow customers to receive notifications for new products and services as they come in. The customers can subscribe to the feed though RSS or through mobile devices.

There are actually many other benefits of Twitter that are being utilized to a lesser extent. For example, this tool can help you manage your time better because you can keep track of your daily activities. Aside from this, you can even find prospective clients who are in the same line of business as you.

Social networking giants such as Facebook and MySpace might be the giants in the online world but other sites with unique concepts are fast catching up. The newest addition to the social networking family, Twitter.com, is a micro-blogging tool that enables its members to update friends, family, and strangers about the most important events of their lives while on the go.

Twitter describes itself as the “global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?” With this simple concept, it has attracted users that range from average internet users to presidential candidates.

It is quite easy to become a member of this site. Members will get his own page on Twitter and he can update it daily through three different ways: through text messaging, through instant messaging, or through logging in on the site itself. Twitter will then automatically update the member page and send a message to your “friends”.

It is apparent that Twitter is the next giant in the social networking industry. However, it is not without its negative reviews. Some people think that Twitter will only make the online community more trivial while some believe that it will encourage cyber stalking. But whatever anyone’s opinion might be, there is no denying that Twitter has come to its own. And it is up to internet marketers how they will take advantage of the unique opportunity that is presented by Twitter.com.

What is StumbleUpon?

StumbleUpon is very much similar to social bookmarking sites such as Del.ico.us and Digg but it has a slight difference. This is because while other social bookmarking sites tend to send thousands, if not millions, of visitors your way in a span of several days if your story made the front page; StumbleUpon provides a lower amount of traffic in a more consistent rate. Using StumbleUpon is a good way to drive traffic to your site is a great way to build a loyal base of readers.

How to Use StumbleUpon

Basically, StumbleUpon works when a user downloads a toolbar that allows them to rate a particular website as thumbs up or thumbs down. To receive traffic from StumbleUpon, you must first submit one of your webpage. Then, you should browse your own website and select the thumps up symbol to be able to add it in StumbleUpon.

Increasing Traffic

You can increase your traffic using simple techniques in StumbleUpon. Some of the strategies you can try out include:

· Adding more friends. Having more friends will allow your site to be exposed to a greater number of users who will see the newly added pages on your site.

· Submit new pages. When you create new blog posts, for example, you should submit this URL to StumbleUpon using their toolbar. This technique will increase the number of pages you have in the database so the likelihood of users “stumbling” on your webpage is also improved.

· Categorizing pages property and adding multiple tags. These two techniques will allow you to attract relevant traffic to your site.

· Rate websites. Get involved in the community because it can definitely help your site appear to StumbleUpon users who share the same interest as you. This will increase the likelihood that they will rate your site with thumbs up as well.

I’m a huge fan of SMM (Social Media Marketing), and I think it’s an amazing way to get yourself noticed if you have the right content. One thing that does sort of get under my skin though is that there are so many people out there trying to game social media and social networking services in order to promote themselves or their product. I’m not going to directly call anyone out, but there’s a good chance that if you go to just about any SEO blog you’re going to find posts giving you “tips & tricks” on how to game social media.

Fortunately for you, you don’t have to read all of these other posts because I have the one (and only) secret to utilizing social media properly.

The Problem

The problem with SMM articles is that very few of them argue the value of social media and instead focus only on what you can get out of it. This is also the typical SEO mindset, but it is much more damaging in the social media world. They supply you with an arsenal of “tips & tricks” needed to game the system instead of showing you how to use it as it’s meant to be used.

We all remember Gary Ruplinger’s fantastic analysis of the SEO side of social media don’t we? That’s just one example of how people are trying to game social media. The idea of free high PR backlinks, instant exposure, and potential virility attract everyone looking for instant success overnight. The truth is if you set out to game social media people are going to catch on and you’re going to succeed in doing little more than smudging your reputation.

The Solution

If you really want to make use of social media marketing the one and only way you can do that is by registering and participating in the community, make real contributions, and use the service as it is meant to be used. That’s it. That’s the tip, that’s the trick, that’s the butter.

If you want a story to make it to the frontpage of Digg then build your reputation and submit good stories. If you want articles to be taken seriously on Reddit then build your reputation and submit good stories. If you want your videos to get noticed on YouTube then build your reputation and submit good videos. If you want your articles to rise through the ranks of Netscape then build your reputation and submit good stories. See a pattern here?

Trying to take little shortcuts just doesn’t cut it in social media like it did in the old web days or with SEO. The only way you can make social media work now is by actively engaging the community, immersing yourself in it, and yes actually becoming a user. If you try to game the system people will see through it and you’ll accomplish little more than a couple wimpy click throughs and a backlink. Social media is powered by users. Users are much more capable of seeing through scams than AI. If you act like some old fart trying to game the system to increase your PR then they’ll know it, and you’ll accomplish nothing.

But How Do I Make the Most of it?

I’m tired of hearing people say things like “Yes, I know I have to be active in the community to succeed, but how do I make the most of it?” Why does this annoy me? Because the answers are so damn simple.

For example:

Q: How do I get a good reputation on Digg so that people will take my stories seriously?
A: Submit good stories and vote on ones that you enjoy reading.

Q: How do I get people to go to my blog from MyBlogLog?
A: Visit other bloggers and if you like their articles let them know, add them to your contacts, and join their blog community.

How hard are these questions to answer? Most of them can be read on the homepages or FAQs of the sites themselves! The bottom line is that if you can’t answer these kinds of questions for yourself then you are not immersing yourself in these social media sites and are not learning how to properly utilize these services.

If you stay in the mindset of “what can I get out of social media?” then you’re going to fail at it. If, however, you go into it thinking “how can I go about making use of and enjoying this service?” then you will succeed in building a good reputation, earning new readers, and reaching the full potential of SMM.