Building Websites, Traffic, and Income
Organic Social Media Marketing
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Organic is used a lot on the internet. So let me explain how I am applying it to social media marketing.
How do you learn social media marketing? That was a question I asked myself a few months ago. It was a new animal to tackle. I had blogged and used SEO, now it was time to learn something new. But was it?
I joined StumbleUpon in 2004 when the marketer’s on the site could be counted on one hand. Did I market my sites? Not really. I just thumbed up sites and pages I liked. It was simple and natural. No ulterior motives. That combined with the fact that StumbleUpon is a bit addictive helped me become a top Stumbler for months at a time.
After a while, I scolded myself though. “This is not getting work done.” So I went back to doing work online instead of playing. Back to the SEO that I knew and that made me a lot of money when combined with affiliate programs. I took that route for a couple of years until I popped my head back up to realize that I was falling behind.
During that period of burying my head in the sand, blogs exploded, videos exploded and social networks exploded. And I didn’t know much about any of them. When I got to the social media marketing part of my self-created curriculum, I forgot about my past StumbleUpon experience.
What did I do instead? I started looking for hot stories. I subscribed to the feeds of blogs that were consistently showing up on the hot pages of social networks. I would open 4 tabs at the same type. In each tab, a different flavor of meme trackers. This was all to teach me what a good story was. I had some success with this method. But I was adding nothing and my comments were worthless, for the most part, because most of the stories didn’t really interest me.
I had become a machine, processing stories and comparing then to hot stories I had seen before. A little calculator was going in my head figuring out the odds of a story becoming hot and me being the one to find it. Stop!!!
And then I started thinking. If all of the following are covered:
- You write about a topic you enjoy.
- You research a topic you are passionate about.
- You read blogs on that topic.
Then there is no need to worry about how you use social media. Just learn the mechanics and use it. Just use it. After reading post after post on how to use social media, I was back to that point where I first tried StumbleUpon, was finding new sites I had never imagined before and wasn’t thinking about how it was effecting the traffic to my sites. Drop your ulterior motives and like things for the sake of liking them. That and maybe read Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” every now and then and you should be alright. Articles on the topic can help, but for the most part, they are just telling you what you already know. The medium is different. The people, the same.
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22 Responses to Organic Social Media Marketing
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Interesting article. I could not get StumbleUpon to work for me. Just write interesting articles about things people are interested in – post to your blog and get picked up on Google Searches and your set.
It has worked for me pretty well. Digg is the one I have yet to understand.
Social media marketing is not difficult and I must agree with you Stephan that without passion and interest, getting desired results is very hard, almost impossible.
You must love what you are doing.
Very nice post Stephan. Digg is very special. Its members are usually geeks. You need to post something that is catchy for these people. But if you hit the front page of Digg, your blog’s server will be down due to overload
Yet we can still discuss whether these one time visitors will become your loyal reader or not. But obviously it will be a good PR for yourself and your blog. You have great content, chances are you will have a lot of new RSS subscribers.
I guess everything just takes time. I will learn Digg eventually. I am not sure if I am quite that geek, since my geek side comes out as a tool to get the job done not an end in itself. People are more valuable than tech.
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I think too many businesses begin to use social media and worry “am I doing it right” and miss the point that just being part of it, adding to the community, and having relevant conversations is all part of doing it right. Much like the Nike slogan, the key to making SM work is to “Just do it!”
Matt
Learning social media is basically learning the tools. The rest you should pick up naturally.
Hey Stephan – great post!
All too often you read really complicated diatribes about this sort of stuff that actually end up making people (and potential clients) more confused about this sort of stuff – I really like the way you’ve boiled it down to 3 really simple principles.
A lot of what I have read seems way too calculated. It is good to remember what you are there for when you are using social media to market, but not be a robot. But it also is a bit like learning to ride a bike. It seems very artificial when you first start.
Its never good to be like a robot in any type of marketing, being legit and real is a must!
I think to promote your business or your site in the social media, you just have to present it in the best way, get some votes, and its also good to looking for a new idea. The key here is to build a connection with the community
Social Media Marketing is still a relatively new realm for me. I’ve used Digg with limited success (wait, no success) but have yet to try StumbleUpon. I think it is definitely key to make sure you are writing about stories that your are really into and feel passionate about sharing.
CSS Perks last blog post..Visual ID
One wordpress plugin that I find useful is Commenter Emails. Every time someone post a comment to your blog, it collects the email and put it in a list. Saves time.
Ok you are the second person that has told me about reading “how to win friends and influence people”. I guess I need to pick it up. As far as reading, researching, and writing, people are always going to eventually land where they are happiest, and where they see a value added proposition to what they study. That is why I make it a goal to write, research, and study what is on my heart.
Social media marketing can play an important role in online marketing.Now a days social media sites are getting more popularity and it has many visitors so social media marketing can help to boost any online business.
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Hello Stephan …
This article will help me a lot as i do not know much about SMM. Thanks for sharing this information.
I believe that “one must be passionate for the things you desire to get.”
SMM and SMO are very important if u need high traffic for ur site
Organic marketing is obviously the best way to go but it is both time and effort intense. It takes a great message, a great product, or a pretty clever marketing strategy to get things going. As you mentioned, becoming involved in a niche that you really enjoy will make the work you put into it much easier.
Hello, i feel that i noticed you visited my web site thus i came to go back the prefer?.I am attempting to to find issues to enhance my site!I assume its adequate to use some of your ideas!!