Can Social Media Really Help You Blog?

No doubt that using a social media can help boast your blog’s but not all social media create the same effects.  Even within the same media you need to be a powerfull user to gain the full benefit of the social media.   Most recent attribute success of social media always link to the usage of social network like Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Digg and their siblings.  It is too many to list all the social link here. While on occasion, we were served with a comparison between two siblings but most of the time we more inclined (at least for me) to master one of the many.

The big question how does social media help your blog?  If you can find the answer to this question then you can also determine the real value of social media (of which, some think also play certain roles in the recession conundrum).

The Before And After Effect : The Success Story

I had explain how by using certain social media siblings will eventually create a steady stream of organic traffic and fixed, longer tailed rankings. The best story would be how a blog had helped an ailing company from closure (St.Paul Classic Cookie) and create new customer as a result of disclosure in a community blog.

Pink Cake Box is another example how a company had aggressively used blog and social media effectively.  In their interview, it’s interesting to note a few key point from their online marketing success:

1. How to use open sources software like wordpress, drupal and joomla effectively while at the same time invite active participant from your employees to use and contribute the necessary content.
2. Why the company choose wordpress as their CMS application and how the company had used it effectively in their marketing campaign.
3. Having about 120,000 unique visitors a month is not enough. What important is how to turn this visitors into a customer (remember the 1-9-90 rule).
4. How to use Flickr and Youtube effectively as an important marketing medium.
5. The most important aspect is how the company measured their success

This few’s illustration only display the small possibilities of using social media as a tool to promote your blog.  As a result, the proponents of social media think, your investment in social media can bring substantial return and can be measured effectively – although not in monetary term directly but indirectly.

So How Then We Should Use Social Media To Our Advantage

I had to admit that I had talked much about StumbleUpon since I used SU more intensively.  You could read some my article on SU below:

1. Branding With StumbleUpon
2. How I Got 30 Invite Per Day For One OF My Social Networking Website
3. SU Integrity Score Matrix – SU Profiles Profiling
4. SU Integrity Score Prequel – The Determinant Of Power Stumbler
5. The Zen Of StumbleUpon – Tim Nash StumbleUpon Model

You could also read article related to their siblings elsewhere on the internet.  If I where to summarise how best to use social media advantage to ourselves, I would summarise it as follow:

1. Create a permanent brand.  On the internet nobody know that you’re a dog.  Social media give you and anyone of us an opportunity to be somebody.  Building authority through social media requires time and a lot of stakes involved.  Once you start building it, start by protecting it.  I would like again to re-iterate what make-up of authority (Not what like the cartoon say “But he looks sincere,sound convincing and has “DR” in front of his name”), Substance + Number = Authority.  Where substance = good content + comment (social involvement) + viral, and number = web presence + readership. Not all blog have the multiplier effect such as highly viral content but a blog that have a high viral content  will definitely have all the multiplier effect.
2. Learn to write for social media.  Be a chameleon on social media.  This is really important because writing for Digg will be very different as when you writing for StumbleUpon.  The same rules applies when you tried to expand your brand using Digg or StumbleUpon.
3. Be an active player.  Social media come with one important word that make them a people place, people involvement and engagement – social.  It’s that one word differentiate this media between other media.

I had put down three most important step to make social media work for you.  Of course, some people suggest more than three, and you may suggest more.

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