Simple Traffic Solutions by Dan Jasmin - HTML preview

Chapter 3

Social Networking—Get Out and Mingle!

Social networking is not just fun and “in” for 2012—it is also a guaranteed way to get free traffic. After all, social networking is free and it means hours and hours of free publicity for your company…that is, if you can get the lingo and the “culture” (if you will) of sites like Facebook and Twitter.

This first point to understand is that social networking is not at all like sales, or even anything like your official website. When someone visits your website they want to read sales information and content about your industry and your services. However, when people are in the mood to socialize, they simply want to chat, goof off, share information, share links and stories and generally have fun.

In fact, coming across as a “company” or speaking only about things that concern you and your great products is probably going to rub people the wrong way. This is against the very nature of social networking—a place that is more like a playground or like a lunch break room than an “office.”

So, how can you use social networking to increase traffic? This is an issue that still confuses many business owners, as their pages may only receive a handful of likes and never stimulate conversation. Inevitably, the site owner wonders, what did I do wrong?

Here’s the secret: you must learn each individual social networking site, and use its unique features to draw in traffic. You must become not just part of the crowd, but part of the Facebook crowd, part of the Twitter crowd. Let’s take Facebook as an example..

Facebook’s Features

Facebook is a website that capitalizes on personal user relationships. Facebook is the place that boldly brings together friends, family members and acquaintances from all walks of life. In fact, many people actually avoid talking or even listing their business and instead just enjoy time off with their friends. We can blame a series of well– publicized Facebook “Fails” for this…you know the boss is always watching when you make fun of the company in a public forum.

So yeah, that and the fact that no one wants to swear in front of grandma, just keeps Facebook a very work-less environment. The moment you start mentioning work, people become annoyed. (Unless of course, you’re complaining about work!)

On the other hand, no one really cares what you say on your profile, because it’s perfectly fine to say who you are, what you do and where you work. It’s the sort of conversation you would have at a bar, right? Besides, people do actually want to know who you are…they want to know of what “use” you are to them. For example, if you say you’re a doctor, everyone will definitely take note of that and call you up the next time they have a question.

It’s the same principle with anything you do - as soon as you say that you work in a certain field, you are deemed the expert and your associates identify you with your products and your business. No, they don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to hear you rattle off catchphrases and talk about great deals. However, if an issue comes up they will definitely click your profile and visit your website. They will be seeking you out, looking help with their customer needs.

This is the secret to social networking, and quite frankly, the secret to all sales in the new millennium. Do not try to sell on Facebook. Attract your customers. Besides the ability to create a detailed profile full of links, Facebook also has these other advantages:

• The Ability to Share Photos and Videos: Facebook allows you to share photos and videos among friends, which can be funny, touching, motivational or controversial. These are great at stirring reaction, and the more people you have chatting, the more your brand is getting around. After all, your goal is to be the brand. So, not talking about business is not really a big deal if you are using your personal time to promote your company’s values.
• The Ability to Connect with New People: Facebook lets you connect with old friends (who it actually seeks out according to your personal Internet logs… creepy, huh?), reply to messages and send private messages. It also has various forms of communication, from direct conversation to status updates, to highlighting articles you have read, which others might be interested in. The point is, you can engage your audience on a social page and earn their respect as a friend, long before you ever bring up business. Creating a long list of contacts is the first step to using social networking, as you are building a large and personally invested audience. Remember to make your page public if you hope to get extra publicity. You can also like or share pages that are not only interesting to you—but reflect the values of your company. In essence, your behavior is part of your brand. Out of curiosity, people will “stalk” you just to see what you like, what you say and what you believe. It’s all great for publicity!
• Facebook Groups and Pages: Another example of Facebook’s unique environment is the fact that you can create your own groups and pages and unite people (and secretly build an audience) to promote something you believe in. Now, you cannot convince them all to “join” your company. True, you can ask people to “like” your company and bribe them to do so as well—but it’s not as effective as drawing their attention away from business and towards a free group or fan page. Instead of trying to break down their resistance, distract them from business talk by focusing on another common agenda. Like a group of people united by a common interest, or a group of people who gather together locally to discuss issues. Creating a community away from business can actually draw people to your business, as they will soon realize you’re a natural born leader and know a great deal about your industry (and how it affects them). Start by searching for existing groups and taking part in that discussion. The great thing about Facebook is that you never have to sign up to new groups. You simply use the same ID and can converse freely in a variety of connected “worlds.” If your niche interest (which is also your business) doesn’t exist, be sure to create it. You can also create movie pages, celebrity pages and product pages just to get attention from the mainstream world—all of which may take an interest in your life and career. Be sure to research the keywords and determine what your group name should be called in order to drive more traffic to you. Keyword research tools or even Facebook searching tools can be of help here.
• Facebook Places: See Chapter 6 under Local and Mobile Marketing.
• Facebook Events: Users can create events and gatherings and invite all of their friends to join them. Even if all the VIPs cannot RSVP, they can still comment on the event and offer moral support. Little events (whether a night out at dinner or a huge festival in town) sponsored by your company are a great way to get a dialogue going with others, or even to brand your name as an official sponsor of a "meet up" in person. For even better traffic generation, provide the details of your involvement at your official website.

Twitter’s Tips

Twitter is the abbreviated version of Facebook, and while its options are not as complex, many people find it simplicity very useful. One great thing about Twitter is that it allows you to develop more professional and casual relationships, not necessarily “friends” but followers. In fact, Twitter is far more often used as a means of advertising new pages of content, recruiting employees and clients, answering customer service concerns and other business concerns.

• The Real Time Search: This option allows you to search topics on what people are talking about and is a great to discern trendy new subjects and other market research. In fact, one of the latest rumors is that Google will buy Twitter, and incorporate an even more effective means of searching the entire web and matching keyword content. Twitter and other social networks are arguably more popular than email services, since users can check their messages from any location (including mobile devices), and thus are easier to contact.
• Interact with the Latest News: You have a choice of interacting with the latest news stories or commenting on the website’s most popular keyword searches. You can click the Discover or the Connect tabs to explore your options. You can

find more friends or even surf the new categories option for a Yahoo-like approach to various channels in the Twitter zone.

• Followers: The key to earning traffic through Twitter is to create a huge list of followers. The best way to do this is to focus on writing excellent niche content. Give serious thought to your tweets and try to make all of your microblog posts informative or entertaining. Some individuals (not celebrities!) have actually earned millions of followers just because they kept a running journal of thoughts and stay in touch with their circle. One way to earn bigger traffic is to take a look at other users who are operating in your “niche”. Find them and look at their followers. Follow them and correspond with them about the subjects they find interesting. In this respect, you can use Twitter like a blog site, and build your own community of users.

Just remember to keep tweets regular (there are actually programs that help you schedule tweets) and—once again—to avoid repetitive company promotion and actually hold a conversation with your followers. You can gain more traffic by reposting good tweets, by linking to excellent resources, and replying to all tweets sent to you, thereby building online relationships. (And these sources may eventually become your customers)

LinkedIn’s Linking

LinkedIn is not as popular as Facebook or Twitter but it is quickly gaining a reputation as a serious business site. And when you first log in to LinkedIn, you may be alarmed at its setup, which is far more complicated than your typical Twitter or Facebook page.

LinkedIn, although it has been following some of Facebook’s new layout designs, is actually more interested in creating connections with business associates than socializing with friends.

The question is: How can you boost traffic to the site since you won’t be relying on your old Facebook-esque “look at me!” tricks and tips? Notice some of LinkedIn’s best features:

• Questions and Answers: While Yahoo Answers may be a top rated site for questions and answers, the LinkedIn Q&A section actually is taken far more seriously, and thus has better quality answers to pertinent questions. These are questions asked by professionals and answered by professionals, all parties eager to represent their brand with class and intelligence. By showcasing your knowledge, in this rare instance, a case where people actually DO want to talk about business concepts, you can draw people to your profile which contains all of your social media links and website URL. Another idea to consider: carefully choose the questions you answer, knowing that “big name” company spokespersons will be among the first to reply. Rest assured, they all read the comments, and will notice your name (and company representation) if you impress them. LinkedIn is special in that it’s a great place to meet new customers and new clients at the same time. Just be sure to avoid giving the same answers to all new questions.
• Profile Stats: You can actually see trends and statistics on who viewed your profile, a great way of finding potential new business links or customers.
• Find Jobs: You can search for jobs directly using the jobs tab and can post jobs, apply for jobs or post a resume online, which could lead searches to you.
• Find Companies: You can search for individuals as well as company-grouped profiles, or follow companies you find relevant to your industry.
• See News: Check out the latest news from the “news” section and see how various companies relate to it. Follow influential people and their actions. You may even link with them, which will work wonders for your traffic if a big name ever blurbs you.

Google+’s Extras

Google Plus, to some, seems like a bit of overkill—or at least it did when it first debuted. It’s not as sociable as Facebook or as simple to use as Twitter. However, some of the newest features of Google + are making the site extremely competitive—perhaps even

more so than before, since Google is buying up so many companies and dominating the entire Internet when it comes to searches.

Like Yahoo, Google gives credence to its own sub-company links. Therefore, being friends with Google, by integrating its technology, is a win-win situation for everyone. Google Plus also boasts the following traffic generating features:

• Video chat (ideal for conferencing or hosting video Q and As);
• Easy integration with file storage, thanks to Google Drive;
• Sparks is a trending content option that lets you find inspiration or lets you monitor how people search for you or link to you searches;
• The Circles option lets you group your followers so that you can better target pitches and status updates. This may go a long way in helping you to effectively target certain groups for certain messages, and thus not upset the entire association of your followers with niche type postings; and
• The +1 feature is the Google equivalent of a like button, but it promises more search friendly options, as “popular sites” will inevitably be the ones with hundreds or thousands of +1 links.

Pinterest

A relatively new phenomenon in social networking is Pinterest, a website that exclusively uses pictures—art, photography and motivational imagery—in the creation of its social network. Pinterest is all about branding and it has to be as subtle as possible, since no blatant advertising is going to work. Instead, users concentrate on creating communities, inspiring responses and photo shares (or re-pins in its own terminology) and in finding mutual interests in relationships.

Most experts state that the secret to gaining traffic with Pinterest is to be yourself, to be real and true to you and your company’s values—and to let the pictures tell the stories. Pinterest doesn’t have much in the way of advanced interaction features, but it does have an easy setup, and a simple process that allows users to “pin” images of the same size.

All of these images can include a link back, available upon a double click. Statistics show that Pinterest is one of the fastest-growing social networking sites, and all the more so when it comes to generating external traffic. Make sure that all of the photos and images you post match your business, which is a key point in integrating all of your different pages.

Like any site, be sure to update the content regularly and launch daily pin themes. Don’t limit yourself to products…use Facebook style multitasking and post images of tidbits, tips, and even products of other users. Last but not least, use the key phrases on the board to reach out for those targeted viewers.

Forum Feats

Forums don’t have the clout that they used to have. After all, before there was such a thing as MySpace (the first big social media site that slowly died over time) there was the Internet forum, or in archaic terms, the “chat room” or the bulletin board system.

These applications were the predecessors of social networking and helped bring people of highly varied niche interests together long before there was a universal network that connected everybody together.

Well, guess what? They haven’t gone out of style. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are actually so big that many people avoid them, figuring that aside from friends and family, it is too difficult to find people that actually share their most important interests.

However, web forums still have the capacity to bring niche audiences together, especially if you create forums that cater to keyword interests, and visit other forums to post as a guest (or even a part time moderator). When you join a forum, you discuss all of the niches that really matter to people—the type of topics that bring you devoted followers, not just casual surfers. Forums also give you:

• Special tools like polls;
• Easy cross platform logging in abilities thanks to Facebook and Twitter integration;
• A chance to find your target market and interact with them;
• A chance to build community trust; and
• A signature, which is basically a link back to your company, and an opportunity to make a statement about your credentials and your company’s values.

When focusing your efforts on forums, try doing some keyword research to target the best audience to work with, and don’t forget to actually add the phrase “forums” to your search so you can filter out all the social network pages and content mills.

Last but not least, remember that all social networking—regardless of which site you use—is useful to you as the medium is a form of free advertising. The only rules of thumb are:

(A) You cannot be lazy about it—you have to update consistently.

(B) You cannot blatantly promote…try to be creative and sociable above all else.

(C) You cannot be boring. Even if you’re just giving free stuff away, try to be fun and interesting.

Social networking sites have two great traffic advantages: first, they create quality links for your site. In fact, with the latest search algorithm updates, social media pages actually showed an increase in traffic, whereas content mills and even article directories showed significant decreases. Second, social networks create a great quantity of links leading back to your site - the more that your content or links are shared amongst the community.

The biggest mistake new business owners make is clear: they do nothing with their page rather than going out and recruiting people by befriending them, sharing with them and (gasp) yes, even promoting their business. It’s the cyber equivalent of hosting an event. So by all means, invite people…mingle and have fun with the latest trend in free online marketing.

What about email marketing? Some say email marketing may be a thing of the past… especially since instant messaging and social networking sites are stealing the thunder. Gee, I wonder…have you received any SPAM email offers lately? Of course! The medium is not dead. However, you must take an assertive and smart approach to email marketing if you want to generate serious traffic.

Let’s consider how to find traffic through email in our next chapter.