Social bookmarking type sites are booming right now, and seem to be fluctuating in traffic as well. Each network has a different demographic no matter how much the same they all seem. Not all social networks are created equal and to have a strong social media marketing plan you need to know what type of demographic each has, and what type of content will generally perform better. All statistics gathered from Quantcast.

1. Digg
Digg is pretty much the most popular social bookmarking site. Statistics from Quantcast estimate that Digg receives about 21 million unique visitors a month. The digg audience is mostly males (63%) between the ages 23-34, with a household income between $30,000 – $100,000. I’m sure the audience has changed drastically from the time they came online. Digg like all other sites has certain content that appears more on the front-page, these include lists (top 50.. etc.), politics, Apple articles, and interesting photos.

2. Propeller
Propeller (once Netscape) is second to Digg ranking in with 1.4 million monthly unique visitors. Like Digg, Propeller also has a predominantly male audience with 54% of traffic most of whom are age 45-54. The older audience of Propeller also have deeper pockets with 55% of them making over $60,000. The front page also seems to pertain more to the older crowd with most of the news being politics, business, economy, etc.

3. StumbleUpon
A Quantcast top 5,000 website StumbleUpon brings in 1.2 million unique visitors a month from the U.S. The audience is male biased (51%) and has a relatively equal spectrum in age. 30% of traffic comes from ages 18-34, 33% from ages 35-49, and 33% from ages 50 and up. Also interesting about this age range is it’s effect on the average income. 30% of StumbleUpon users have an income of $100,000 or more. 47% of which, have no college education (no joke.)

4. Fark
Just missing out on the top three is Fark.com. Fark has grown considerably and seems to be retaining their traffic well. With over one million monthly unique visitors, its bigger than sites like Del.icio.us, Reddit, and Newsvine. They attract a middle aged audience, mostly Caucasian, and are less affluent (53% $30K-100K). Fark also has a much higher male population (72%) than most of the other sites. They have a more interesting brand of popular content focusing around “interesting, bizarre and amusing news stories, along with regular photo manipulation contests”.

5. Newsvine
Not quite reaching a million users yet, Newsvine comes in at number four. A top 10,000 site that reaches over 946K U.S. unique visitors monthly. They have a middle aged, Caucasian audience that is less affluent. The site attracts a skewed male audience (55%) and 46% of them have an income of $30,000 – $60,000. Also interesting is that Newsvine has a very large business readership. 31% of their readers are business with over 4.5K large businesses alone.

6. Reddit.com
Another top 500,000 site is Reddit. With 856.7K unique visitors a month, Reddit attracts a 57% male audience that is between the ages of 35 and 49 (35%). Within Reddit’s audience 65% have a household income of $30,000 to $100,000. Similar to Digg, Reddit favors content related to political, business, and offbeat/celebrity news.

8. Clipmarks
Raking in 493.9K unique visitors monthly, Clipmarks comes in at number seven. The top 5,000 website appeals to a male biased audience (57%) with a pretty equal division of income through all ages. The largest of the groups (28%) taking in $30K – $60K.

7. Del.icio.us
Although the olders Del.icio.us is not the most popular, ranking in with 37K unique visitors a month from the U.S. The audience is again mostly male (53%) and the largest age group is those between 35 and 49 (33%.) Use of Del.icio.us seems to be dieing off pretty quick lately and Quantcast shows that 92% of their traffic is passers-by meaning people are there for a few seconds and leaving.

9. Blinklist
Blinklist.com has seen a huge traffic plunge over the last few months and fell out of the top 10,000 sites. Down from over 560K in June of 08′, they now take in just over 131,000 unique visitors a month. A higher percentage of males (61%) make up the audience bringing in $60,000 to $100,000 on average. The site appeals to a more educated, more affluent, more male following.The typical visitor reads Salon, patronizes cduniverse.com, and visits killmyday.com

10. Shoutwire
Just making the list is Shoutwire with 20.4K unique monthly visitors. Shoutwire has a 58% male audience that is slightly younger with 63% of users between the ages 12 and 34. Even with the lower age range, the audience claims a 4 way split of almost 25% of the audience in each income bracket.

Obviously Digg is the champ here. They take in more traffic than the other nine combined meaning they should defiantly be a part of your social media marketing strategy. Digg also sees the largest amount of ad revenue and they continue to grow. This should give you a good base for what demographics apply to the top 10 sites, which should then give you a good idea how to generate content for them.

Before you can use Twitter to brand yourself or your company, you need to create an audience. In order to do that, you have to get some freinds especially if your account is new. In order to seed your account you will need to find some people to follow. These people should be people you would actually like to see tweets from, that are releated to your niche. Heres 6 sites to help you do that.

1. Twits Like Me
One of the better Twitter apps I have seen, Twits Like Me helps you find other users who share your interests. All you have to do is enter your username and it will search for people… “like you”. You can also toggle an option to exclude people who are already your friends. Its also another fast, and accurate tool.

2. Twitter Search
Did you know Twitter has its own search engine that is actually really useful? They don’t really advertise the search feature but it’s there. Twitter Search has some powerfull advanced features to search with and also has options for local Twitter searches.

3. TwitterWho
TwitterWho uses Twitter’s people search form found at http://twitter.com/invitations. This tool lets you enter multiple queries at once so you can find people more efficiently. The service has been lightning fast as far as my tests went and it seems to be acurate too.

4. TwitDir
Once you break into Twitter and get some friends, you should move twoards the leaders in your niche at the time. TwitDir can help you locate some of the top Twitter users in the following categories:
The Top 100 Followed
The Top 100 “Updaters”
The Top 100 “Favoriters”
and The Top 100 Followers
The “TOPs” section can also show you what kind of numbers you would need to make it on one of these lists.

5. Twubble
Another Twitter app called “Twubble” helps you find interesting people to follow by searching your social graph. Simply go to Twubble and click “find some friends.” Twubble is hooked up so as long as you are logged into Twitter, you won’t need any credentials. The friends Twubble finds are by how many of your friends are following them. Another cool feature is the ability to follow people that you find with one click, just like being on Twitter.

6. Twitter Local
Twitter Local is another speedy service that helps you find Twitter users in a given area. You can search by zip, city, or state and select the search radius by miles. The app then gives you options for RSS and XML versions or you can view the lastes tweets in that area live. Twitter Local has an Adobe AIR version for download as well.

I don’t think people are realizing the power of personal branding. I think a lot of people still believe it does not work, or is not effective. Well, I have the perfect example of personal branding for these people.

That example is Jeremy Schoemaker. Hate him or love him the strength of his “Shoemoney” brand cannot be denied. He has become one of the most recognizable bloggers, not only by his logo but his face and name. He built this brand simply through blogging and using social media outlets. Something you can learn here on SmmGuru is that the information im giving you does work. Schoemaker has launched a number of services over the last year or two including AuctionAds (now ShoppingAds) and his ShoemoneyTools program. AuctionAds was bought by Media Whiz for an undisclosed price and ShoemoneyTools seems to be doing well also.

Why does this work… Because the Shoemoney brand has an audience. Jeremy is able to build massive amounts of press and traffic for whatever it is he’s promoting. Using the people he knows and his position in the blogging community, his blog has also been a go to place for launching related products and services. Once you have a name to brand, all you need to do is build your image online. If you can make your face as recognizable as a logo, chances are you will succeed.

And you should now understand that personal branding does work. Jeremy has mentioned that he makes over $300K a month on his blog and it’s all due to his brand name. Just like your favorite cereal, he has become a product of the internet with the ability to sell himself.

Once you start to grow, you will inevitably come to a point where traffic slows and you need to take things to the next level. In order to break into the next tier of success you must find new ways to bring readers and traffic to your site. Here are some tips to do so:

1. Get Around The Blogosphere
Pick blogs that are not overloaded… Once you find them start to really read and leave valuable comments behind. You will see that people will have a much better reaction to your blog and a nice chunk of traffic will develop if you branch out to enough blogs. Keep in mind that you don’t want to spam, and the blogs you find should be within your niche or topic.

2. Submit Guest Posts
Develop quality posts for other blogs in your niche. Chances are the visibility will come much quicker when your post is on high traffic blogs. Pick blogs that have a tendency for high backlinking, commenting, and spreading of content. Not only is it good for the blog owner for your content to perform, but you will reap traffic rewards as well.

3. Free eBook = Crack
People love to get free eBooks that are usable. Develop an eBook around your niche and then come up with a way to give it away. Such as signing up for a newsletter, commenting, or whatever. I would sway to the side of getting more readers in return of giving the eBook away.

4. Create Better Content
Once you have a large amount of content you will easily be able to tell what type of content performs well for your site. Most of the time you will find that posts that took time, and have a lot of details do the best. Not every post you write is going to perform as well as you thought, and some may perform way beyond expectation. Learn what quality content is for your site, and focus on creating it.

5. Keep Your Popular Posts Updated
This one really applies to lists and other resource like posts. After some time you may notice that you still get a lot of traffic to certain content and people are really using it. This is an example of content you should update. Keeping things current will draw even more traffic and use as the resource grows and becomes more popular around your niche.

6. Give People A Reason To Come Back
While not everyone will like your blog, a lot will need a reason before they return. Contests always do well but sometimes you nubs are not able to hold them. Simply give away your free eBook to everyone or create valuable content. If you convert people into subscribers and bookmarks, you have a much better chance of seeing them come back.

7. Get On Some Forums
Start up some nice forum posts, and get discussions going on various forums. After you have build up a large post base, put a link in your signature. Another quick and easy way to get some starting traffic. This method will not bring you 100K a day, but it will quickly get your blog or website started.

Another big mistake people make with social media is they have a tendency to direct to much towards their own content. Without a strong base of authentic posts, you will find any victory short lived as the traffic will know whats up. Finding the right balance between personal and informative posts is a delicate act when it comes to high traffic success. 

Once you have build that base to start on, you can start to build your brand in the community. Find members that share the same interests on other social sites and find relevant blogs. Commenting on other blogs is a fast way to get started as it always draws some amount of attention. Oh ya, the comments need to be relevant to. That means no posting “Hey great post check out my site puppet.com… ” If it even makes it through moderation, chances are it will be ridiculed. You are creating authenticity remember? Post comments that give real feedback, help other commentators, or even comical ones as long as they fit. Another fast way to get started is to link other posts that are relevant. I myself can say that I follow a lot of the new trackbacks to see whats going on and leave a comment. Another great way of letting people know you are authentic.

I call authenticity the fast track because I have seen the difference it can make. You will find that your content spreads much faster, to a broader audience when you come off as a more authentic person. Don’t believe everything your earlobe captures… Many will say spamming will work but social media is a different game. Search engines are getting smarter but you can still spam them, people however can tell when you are spamming and when you are being genuine, or authentic. Whatever success comes from your spamming will not last. Sooner or later search engines will say bye bye and the social media traffic will fall off as people realize you are there for self promotion.

Do you know how much of your traffic is returning traffic? If you don’t, you should! This can be an important metric when trying to increase your conversion rate. There are blogs that get thousands of hits a day but have 5 subscribers because they fall victim to some of these common mistakes:

1. Welcome Your Readers
Welcoming your readers can be the difference to them subscribing, or possibly leaving. Greeting your readers can make your blog more attractive and give your readers a sense of value. This by all means should be a simple one or two sentence greeting. After all, they are looking for the content. You could also take this a step further and track your incoming referral headers to display custom messages for sites like Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and others.

2. Stay On Topic
If your blog is supposed to be about cars and you are posting information on baking cookies, you have an obvious problem. You would think this goes without saying but many people tend to mix to much of their personal life in with their niche blog. Once and a while it’s all good, but when you post about yourself all day instead of your topic people will get annoyed. Narrowing down the content you give will draw targeted traffic that is much more likely to become social on your blog.

3. Your Content Should Be Valuable
The easiest way to do this is to create content that helps others. Before you publish, look for tips and information you can improve on. Add inside information, or information from your experiences that cannot be found on any other blog. You cannot expect to get back if you don’t give anything at all. Helping your readers will also build trust, which can be very important when you start to grow.

4. Connect With Your Audience
Taking a few minuets to reply to comments and e-mails can be much more beneficial than you think. This doesn’t mean you have to stock your readers and reply to every single comment but letting your readers know you are listening is important. It builds a stronger community and people are much more apt to continue reading. Also, show people where to find you on services like Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, and others.

5. Hold er’ Steady
Most important is to post regularly. Set your own goals, even if it’s just two posts a week you want people to know they can expect two posts every week. Humans love regularity by nature and when somethings out of whack people may respond adversely. Let them know that regardless of whats going on, they can count on seeing two posts a week on your blog. Some people find id hard to believe that people really follow blogs like this but it’s true. After some time on the web you will also find some blogs that you come to read regularly.

Don’t be afraid to comment with any ideas you have on converting visitors to subscribers. Although traffic is good, regular readers are even better.

Now that you know Twitter is a powerful marketing tool, it’s time to get familiar. Heres 89 tools, articles, and resources sorted into categories. Use these to create a powerful Twitter following, and increase the visibility of your brand.

Don’t forget to bookmark and subscribe!

Twitter 101:      
1. The Big Juicy Twitter Guide
2. Twictionary – A dictionary for Twitter.
3. TwitDir – Another Twitter directory.
4. The Twitter Blog
5. Explore Twitter

Twitter Media:

6. TweetPic
7. Twitxr
8. Twittershare
9. SnapTweet – Send Flickr photos to Twitter.  
10. Twiddeo – Twitter plus video.
11. TwitterGram – Share audio.
12. TwitSay – Give your Twitter account a voice.

Twitter Stats:

13. TweetBurner – Track what happens with the links you share.
14. Twitt(url)y – Tracks what URLs Twitter users are talking about.
15. Twitter Charts
16. Twitstat
17. TweetStats
18. TwitterBuzz – What people are linking to.
19. Twittermeter
20. Tweet Volume – Enter words or phrases and see how often they appear on Twitter.
21. Twitter Vision  
22. Twitterholic

Friends & Followers:

23. FriendFeed – Discover what your friends are sharing.
24. Twitter Karma
25. TweetWheel – Find out which of your Twitter friends know each other.
26. Who Should I Follow? – Twitter Friend Recommendations.
27. Intwition
28. CrowdStatus – Create a crowd.
29. My Tweeple
30. GroupTweet
31. Twitter 100
32. Quotably – Follow Twitter conversations.
33. TwitterLocal
34. TwitterVerse
35. Twemes – Twitter memes.
36. Tweetmeme
37. TwitterWho – Batch people search.

Spam Protection:

38. The Twitter Blacklist
39. Twitter Twerp Scan
40. Twitter Snooze

Twitter Organization:

41. Socialthing
42. Twittercal – Tweet your Google calendar.
43. Twitter Digest
44. Twitku – Read posts on Twitter, Jaiku and Pownce.
45. Twitter Timer – Set an alarm for things you need to remember.
46. Twitt.icio.us – Send links from Twitter to del.icio.us.
47. Twitter Where

Twitter Tools:

48. Summize – Search Twitter in real time.
49. Twitter Search – A customized search engine for Twitter.
50. YouTwit
51. TwittEarth  
52. Twhirl – A desktop client for Twitter.
53. Snitter – Desktop client for Mac and Windows.
54. Twitterific – Desktop client for Mac.
55. gTwitter – Desktop client for Linux.
56. Witty – Desktop client for Vista.
57. Twitteroo – Desktop client for the PC.
58. TwitterPod – Desktop client for Mac.
59. Twitux – Desktop client for Gnome.
60. Twitterberry – Mobile client for Blackberry.
61. Email Twitter – Mobile client.
62. Twoble – Mobile client for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs.

Twitter for Email:

63. TwitterMail
64. OutTwit

Twitter IM:

65. TwitterIM

Twitter Widgets:

66. Twitter Opera Widget
67. Twitter Widget
68. Twadget

Other Twitter Articles + Resources

69. How To Find Your Target Audience on Twitter – SmmGuru
70. Twitter Is A Tool! You Might As Well Use It – SmmGuru
71. Easy Way To Get More Twitter Followers From Your Blog – SmmGuru
72. How Does Twitter Define Spam – SmmGuru
73. 7 Tips For New Twitter Accounts – SmmGuru
74. Tweeting for Companies 101 – HorsePigCow
75. 5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence – ProBlogger
76. 13 Odd Ways to Use Twitter – Social Media Trader
77. Twitter Feeds Made Simple – ClickPopMedia
78. Video: Twitter in Plain English – Common Craft
79. How to Use Twitter to Build Brand Integrity – Marketing Vox
80. Twitter and Business: The Conclusion – Business and Blogging
81. How We Use Twitter for Journalism – ReadWriteWeb
82. 10 Things Twitter Users Should Not Do – Valley Wag
83. Twitter Hashtags and Groups – American Pai
84. 8 Awesome Firefox Plugins for Twitter – Mashable
85. 10 Ways Twitter Can Boost Your Social News Profile – ReadWriteWeb
86. Copyright and Twitter – Blog Herald
87. My Essential Twitter Tools – Web-Strategist.com
88. Twitter May Not Have to Worry About Uptime Anymore – TechCrunch
89. Why Decentralizing Twitter is so Important – Scripting.com

I was playing with Google’s “2001 Web” search engine and found a few interesting keywords to type in. Many things that are exploding on the web right now where not even heard of seven years ago and some of them, like YouTube turns up nothing. YouTube has become a part of our culture and it turns up zero search results in 2001.

Social Media Marketing – 0 results. Had not even been coined yet.

Shoemoney – 4 results (although non of them are relevant or working)

YouTube – 0 results in 2001, now has over 1 billion.

Web 2.0 – The birth of web 2.01 in 2001, only 2,470 results compared to over 99 million today.

Ajax – No results for asynchronous JavaScript and XML. Now has over 118 million.

Barack Obama – Only 772 results in 2001, now has over 77 million.

iPod – 1,300 results, Apple is not even on the first page. Now has 419 million results.

problogger – 0 results in 2001. Now has over 1.2 million.

gas prices – 145,000 results in 2001, now over 33.6 million.

Another weird thing to do is type in other keywords to see what was big news back then. For instance, I typed in iTunes and saw a headline that iTunes had just topped 275,000 downloads. They probably do that on a daily basis now. Bill Gates even had his own website back in 01′ (first result).

RSS is one of your most valuable tools as a social media marketer. Here is a list of 139 tools and articles that will let you master the craft of converting visitors to subscribers, and increasing your return traffic. Resources include feed creation, promotion, stats, conversion, plugins, validation, and more. Don’t forget to bookmark and comment if you have some to add.

Creating RSS Feeds   
1. RSS Tutorial from mnot.net
2. RSS Tutorial from SiteArticles.com
3. RSS Utilities: A Tutorial
4. RSS Tutorial from W3 Schools
5. RSS Tutorial – Introduction and Overview
6. Creating RSS Files for Your Website
7. Creating a Custom RSS Feed with PHP and MySQL
8. How to Create RSS Feeds with Dreamweaver
9. How to Create an RSS 2.0 Feed
10. How to Create an RSS Feed with Notepad, a Web Server, and a Beer
11. How to Create an RSS Feed from any Web Page
12. Set Up a Simple Syndication Feed Using RSS
13. Making an RSS Feed
14. Make RSS Feeds
15. Create RSS

RSS Tools

16. FeedBurner
17. Fedafi WordPress plugin
18. Feed Cycle
19. URL Fan
20. Ebay 2 RSS
21. FeedMagick
22. Feedverter
23. Flickr Widget
24. RSS ZeitGeist
25. RSS Calendar
26. Tag Cloud
27. Diodia
28. Headline Toolbar
29. RSS Feeds Toolbar
30. Feed Scout
31. My RSS Toolbar
32. Feed Roll Pro
33. Feed Digest
34. Blog Bomb
35. Feed Icons
36. Add This
37. Create custom icons
38. Podcast icons
39. RSS Button Maker
40. RSS Icon Gallery
41. Feed Button
42. Custom Button Maker

Ping Services

43. Ping-O-Matic
44. Pinger from Blog Flux
45. Pingoat

RSS Feed Software

46. Feed Editor
47. MyRSSCreator
48. RSS Content Builder
49. Feed for All
50. Feeder

RSS Feed Readers

51. FeedLounge
52. FeedShow
53. Rojo
54. Blog Bridge
55. News Monster
56. PixelNews
57. GreatNews
58. Particls
59. Anothr
60. FeedDemon
61. NewsLife
62. Straw
63. RSS Owl
64. Netvibes
65. FeedReader
66. Bloglines
67. NewsGator
68. My Yahoo
69. Active Web Reader
70. SurfPack
71. Awasu
72. Pageflakes
73. Daily Rotation
74. RSS Bandit
75. NewzCrawler
76. Juice
77. Snarfer
78. Omea
79. Shrook

RSS Monetizing

80. Feedvertising
81. FeedBurner
82. Pheedo
83. Orange Feed

RSS Forums

84. Digital Point
85. Webmaster World
86. NewsGator
87. Lockergnome
88. RSS Bandit

Mobile RSS Readers

89. mReader
90. NewsGator Go
91. Egress
92. LiteFeeds
93. Mobilerss.net
94. FreeRange
95. Quick News

RSS Feed Conversion

96. Feed Maker
97. Apexoft
98. Atom2RSS
99. NewsAloud
100. RSS2PDF
101. Google2RSS
102. RSS2HTML
103. RSSgenr8
104. Magpie RSS
105. FeedYes
106. Feed43
107. RSS to JavaScript
108. RSS News JavaScript Ticker
109. Feed Sweep
110. Widgetbox

RSS Email Tools

111. News Gator Email Edition
112. R-Mail
113. RSS2Email
114. FeedBlitz
115. PopHeadlines
116. RssFwd

RSS Validation Services

117. Walidator
118. Redland RSS Validator
119. Feed Validator
120. RSS Validator

Various Articles

121. Introduction to RSS
122. What is RSS? RSS Explained
123. RSS Specifications
124. RSS 2.0 Specification
125. History of RSS
126. 35 Ways You Can Use RSS Today
127. Making Headlines with RSS
128. The Evolution of RSS
129. 8 Easy Ways to Monetize Your RSS Feed
130. RSS – Taking it to the People

Firefox RSS Extensions

131. Sage
132. Thunderbird
133. RSS Ticker
134. Wizz
135. Blog Rovr
136. InfoRSS
137. Beatnik
138. NewsFox
139. Feed Sidebar

Having focus is very important to a successful social media campaign. There is a lot of advice floating around and its easy to take the wrong advice and up wasting a lot of time, and possibly money. Social media is not a shortcut to success like most people want it be, its a marketing tools that requires attention and a plan. Here are seven tips to keep your social media strategy focused:

1. What Are Your Assets - Before you get started know that this type of marketing requires time, knowledge, and ability to really work. It’s not a one-time bang it out deal that you can zip through. If these aspects are a problem you can always go the route of a consultant. Obviously this most likely won’t be free but you need a constant presence in social media to survive and that’s the main plus when using a consultant.

2. Define You Audience - Know what demographic you want to hit before you try to hit. Creating a presence in your niche is more important than marketing to everyone you can. Always put your target demographic first, then worry about the stragglers. There’s no point in wasting your time and energy in an audience that will never convert to business. Most services have search functions, use them! It’s incredibly easy to penetrate your niche with all of the advanced search features you can find around the web.

3. Target Niche Specific Social Media Sites - Major social media sites can bring a lot of visitors. I would say that a good starting point would be 2-3 niche networks, and all the big players like Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter, etc. Keep in mind that you want to constructively build profiles on these networks. You can branch out to the thousands of social networks but if you only have a picture and a link in your profile you won’t get far. If you like a girl and you never call her what do you expect to happen? See where the focus comes into play? Focus on your key networks and develop a stronger following.

4. You Got Your Niche, Now Target Your Content - Quality will always pay off in the end. Social media users are not looking for content that’s forced on them but instead something they can use, or content that’s easily shared. Even if you have to pay someone to develop content or widgets for you, its worth it. The amount of traffic and buzz that a major response in social media brings is massive. Create your content geared specifically to your audience and try not to stray to far from your niche. People are there for information on your niche, so give it to them.

5. Do You Have A Conversion Plan - Once you get to the point of masses of traffic, you need to start leveraging it. This all depends on your goals but the first and most basic is converting new users to RSS subscribers. Chances are you have some sort of RSS going for your content so make sure to push it on all of your new visitors. Also think about how you can convert large amounts of traffic into product sales, affiliate sales, leads, and content shares to develop backlinks. The possibilities for conversions is endless, once you have an audience you will learn how to shape and mold content that can bring desired results.

6. Stay Hyped - Once you start to achive your sucess and become a part of the community, you have to work extra hard. Stopping after getting a little success is putting water on the fire. Visit your targeted sites daily and stay active. Vote for others, submit content, add friends, leave comments, etc. When people notice you are submitting and voting for only your content, they have an obvious tendency to dislike you. Use your dam noggin, social media users are another bread and most of them are smart enough to tell a spammer from a member of the community. Keep pushing out content and making yourself known.

7. Learn, Rinse, Repeat - After you have substantial information you can start to evaluate what’s working and what isn’t. Get rid of time wasters and try to put a value on each traffic source. Its much easier to see whats working when you have a criteria. This is why it’s important to have a structured goal. Continue to do what works and tweak your proccess for effciantacy. The nice thing about social media is that as your audience grows, the workload becomes much easier. Your following will do much of your marketing and promotion for you through blog posts and other sharing outlets if you can develop the right content for the job. Also remember to keep tabs on what your community is saying about you. Take advice from your readers, and learn to deal with haters because they are an inevitable waste product of success. No matter how well you do and how much people like you, there are always a handful of unhappy people that envy you. I personally like to take it as a compliment when people go out of their way to try and undermine me. Remember: If they’re hatin’, your doin something right.

Now that you can see how focusing in instead of shooting blind can mean the difference between a failed social media campaign and a successful one. Its about staying in it and developing experience. I have had my share of failures but I have learned more from those than anything else. Create a dynamite plan to outline your site, and you can take a lot of work out of being successful.