As we know, Twitter can be used to brand yourself or your company with some great success. The key however is to make sure you are prominent in your target audience. Obviously you can spread as wide across the network as you want but make sure to hit your target audience hard.

This is actually quite easy, possibly easier than you thought if you didn’t know about their advanced search engine: http://search.twitter.com/advanced. Using this tool alone you can easily plant a seed in your target audience. Let’s say you are a shoe store working your way into social media. This search could help you find people interested in shoes who also blog, comment, share content, etc. What that means, is that possible customer then has the tendency to spread the word and really do your marketing for you. Or you could go even deeper and do a search for local users. Real Estate anyone? Why not use Twitter’s search to help you draw from people in your area looking for what you provide?

Simple, quick, to the point… you can see there are some dam useful features on Twitter when it comes to branding. The ability to go local is huge and can help you dominate in your niche. Establishing a strong social media presence can increase your business in many ways.

Over the last few days I have made some changes to the layout of SmmGuru.com and added some new ways for people to find me. What I found was a super easy way to increase the amount of people who follow you on Twitter and other networks.

All I did was add links to various social media profiles in the footer of the site. While I can’t definitively prove that the new followers came from the footer link, there was defiantly been an increase in followers since I added it. Just a simple tip to those looking to increase their followers on various outlets. I have also seen increases on SocialBrowse, and StumbleUpon as well.

Another thing I am noticing is that once people become avid readers of your blog they want to connect with you on other services as well. Listing your profiles on other social networks is a great way to increase your brand viability, and give your readers new ways to remain updated. If you have not done so, I recommend putting up some links to your profiles now and see what you have been missing.

Building a strong StumbleUpon account can lead you to large success in building an audience. Here are 36 different articles and tips on how to build the best StumbleUpon account possible.

Don’t forget to subscribe to SMMGuru.com!

StumbleUpon 101

• StumbleUpon Official FAQ The O.G. version.
• How To Stumble – Pretty straight forward, they will tech you how to stumble.
• Unoffical StumbleUpon FAQ – Again… Pretty self-explanatory
• Beginners Guide to StumbleUpon
• StumbleUpon Help Forum – StumbleUpon’s official help forums.

Become A StumbleUpon Celebrity

• StumbleRank – Ranks the top StumbleUpon users.
• How to Become a Top StumbleUpon User (or Why You Really Shouldn’t Bother)
• StumbleUpon – How to make yourself a good stumbler
• stumbleGods – Learn StumbleUpon from those with the most powerful thumbs on the service.
• How to Use StumbleUpon Like a Pro
• How do you become a StumbleUpon power user? Ask a 16 year old.
• Making a Power Account on StumbleUpon

The StumbleUpon Network

• Whiteboard Friday – “How to Win Friends & Influence People” – SEOMOZ video on establishing yourself on these networks.
• Building Your Blog with StumbleUpon
• Share Your Stuff: Effectively and Ethically Submitting Pages to StumbleUpon & Stumblers
• stumbleXchange – Use at your own risk!
• Are you banned by StumbleUpon? What is the consequence?
• Organic Stumbling Tip

Use StumbleUpon For Traffic

• A Comprehensive Guide to StumbleUpon: How to Build Massive Traffic to Your Website – A great article at Dosh Dosh on how to create a powerful StumbleUpon account.
• How to Draw StumbleUpon Users Into Your Blog – A nice ProBlogger.net post on retaining your StumbleUpon traffic.
• How to Use StumbleUpon to Promote – Information on using StumbleUpon as a promotional tool.
• StumbleUpon Optimization: Leveraging Photo Stumbles for More Web Traffic – Learn how pictures in your content can induce traffic from StumbleUpon.
• The Why, How and Who of Marketing in StumbleUpon – Combining StumbleUpon with marketing.
• 5 Tactics for Driving Traffic From StumbleUpon – Five more ways to drive traffic with StumbleUpon.
• The Ultimate Guide to Leveraging StumbleUpon – An article on leveraging StumbleUpon with stats included.
• How Important is StumbleUpon? – A thorough look at StumbleUpon.

Business Use of StumbleUpon

• Run a StumbleUpon Advertising Campaign For Your Blog – Use StumbleUpon’s advertising to drive traffic to your blog.
• Stumbleupon can get your AdSense Account Banned for Invalid Impressions Fraud – An important read for anyone who makes most of their money from AdSense.
• How to Use StumbleUpon for Your Business: The Definitive Guide – A break down of StumbleUpon for Business users.

Advanced Topics

• Advanced Stumbling – A wiki page with some advanced Stumbling tactics discussed.
• Using StumbleUpon PhotoBlog It!
• Stumbleupon mathematics for stumblers – Learn how StumbleUpon decides where to send its users.

Third Party StumbleUpon Tools

• StumbleCrumble WordPress Plugin – Show your latest Stumbles.
• StumbleUpon Facebook Application – Same as the above, but for Facebook.
• Del.icio.us Stumble – Convert your del.icio.us bookmarks into stumbles.
• StumbleUpon WYSIWYG Editor

And there you have it. Using these great articles and tools you should be able to take over the web (or maby just your niche ) in no time. The great advantage to building strong accounts on sites like these is that later on when you are starting a new project for example you have some leverage. Once it’s built, you have a powerful user base at your fingertips.

Social media optimization is possibly one of the most helpful tools to build traffic. The amount of people who use social networks on a daily basis is already huge, and continues to grow daily. To leverage the power of social media, you need to start at the source and have your website up to par before you push it to the masses.

Optimize Your Site or Blog
Before you get yourself on the bandwagon, you will need to make sure your website is ready. You have to create content that’s not only interesting, but intriguing and informative. Fill your content with details, links, videos, images, and other collaborative tools that allow visitors to get involved on your site. Offer something appealing, something they cannot get elsewhere. This will ensure they come back to you for their fix. Stressing the quality content again, don’t just post stuff for the sake of putting it up. If its not quality, it will reflect poorly on yourself and visitors may not come back.

Get Buttons!
Pretty much every social media site has some kind of button or widget that allows your visitors to take action right from your website. Make sure to include these buttons from the outlets you use most. Adding Digg and Stumble buttons for instance (if it fits your type of content) can make it much easier to gain a front page Digg sumission or a top Stumble. These buttons also make it much easier to share content, which builds links (SERPS) and traffic. You also want to make sure that if you offer RSS, that every person knows about it. Make your subscription offers so that no one can miss them.

SMO For Link Building
One of the great side effects of social media is it creates many backlinks to you when done right. This ensures that when the initial surge dies down, your search engine standings are in it for the long term. Join every possible social site you can and start to flesh out your online identity. As it grows, you will become more and more linked. Content will be spread faster, and to more people which again provides more chances for links. This is really a no-brainer, it’s easy to see how social media optimization can build links.

Stay Active Online
This will be a tipping point for your SMO campaign. Going out and registering yourself, throwing up a link on your profile, and calling it a day won’t do. Update your social media profile daily and become a part of the community. You can not leverage social media until you are a part of it. While this may seem time consuming, good things come to those who wait. But if you don’t have the time to do it yourself, there are plenty of consultants out there. This may be something to take advantage of especially if you are trying to market your business.

One of the great things about social media optimization is that it allows you to go guerrilla. Instead of investing large amounts of time and money on advertising campaigns, you can go out and use yourself for the marketing. Leveraging social media comes down to how well you can create content, how fast you can network, and how well you can network.

Like many social media sites, everyone is working to be the first one to submit something new. While all of that duplicate content starts to pile in, there will only be one winner who ends up with the story that everyone across the social network sees. However, taking focus off of the story itself and creating a different type of content around this breaking news item, can be much more viral and a lot easier to get to the front page of Digg for instance. Being able to spin breaking news is key.

For this example I will use an event that got a ton of coverage, the 2008 summer Olympics. Take a look at this page of Digg search results. Using all of the buzz the Olympics were generating, a lot of these people created content tottaly unrelated to the events themselves. Instead you see images and articles making fun of George Bush, top 10 lists for everything under the sun, and of course the most embarrassing moments.

Here are some ideas you can apply to other current events. Ask yourself these questions and within your answer you will find ideas for content that works well across social media networks.

1. Competition - Did Apple just release a new product? What does this mean for the industry and their competition? Did Microsoft have a response?

2. Best of the Worst - Top 10 worst players in the NFL, most embarrassing moments of the 2008 MLB highlight reals… Creating content that showcases the best of the worst always does well.

3. Dead People - Were they famous? What amazing things did they do with their life? Was this an avoidable tragedy or was there foul play involved?

4. Shock and Awe - Effects of nuclear weapons testing. Is the internet doomed by [insert new service here]. Will there be an aftershock to the earthquake that just struck California?

Creating social media content whether its for a blog, or for marketing requires that you think outside the box. Your chances of being first to cover a breaking news story are slim so why not increase your odds and create content thats possibly more interesting than the original news item or current event. There will always be relevant news to your niche so find a way to spin it. Hopefully this will allow you to see current events in a different light because when it comes to SMM, they can be your best friend.

Lets face it… Digg and StumbleUpon could possibly be the hardest traffic sources to monetize. Their users are notoriously ad shy and conventional methods must be highly targeted for them to work. Becuase SU can send such large amounts of traffic and have a more steady tail, its important to realize the potential money that can be made from it.

1. Push affiliate links. If you have a lot of affiliate options availbile, why not plug them were relevant. This is one of the best ways to make money on social media traffic as it should fit perfectly in to your content. Just make sure you somehow cloak your URLs so you don’t scare anyone away.

2. Convert them into RSS subscribers. If you can get them to come back, chances are you will make money sooner or later. Another bonus of getting them to subsribe is the ability to put ads in your RSS feed. This method allows you to retain the user, and possibly make some money.

3. CPM Method. This one is more or less like fishing with dynamite. Where all other strategies fail, this one almost never looses. Just make sure you have enough traffic and a good CPM rate or your just wasting your ad space. If you have accounts with various advertisers (you should…) make sure to shop around for the best rates.

4. Private ad sales. If you manage to build up enough exposure, you shouldn’t have a problem getting someone to buy ad space. Have your traffic and or demographics availbile and make it known that you have ad space up for grabs. However, you may want to use some judgement with the ads you get back becuase you also want to keep them relevant or you might end up allienting users due to over saturation of ads.

Four more ways to make money on SU. Quite simple really, you can either go very broad with the CPM or very targeted with private ad sales and affiliate links. Make sure you have stumble worthy content however before you worry about making money off it. Theres nothing worse than a brand new site with Adsense blocks the size of your head plastered everywhere.

The main difference between StumbleUpon and other social media sites such as Digg is that SU is much more targeted. While it may not be as targeted as you like, its still much more niche friendly than Digg would be. Even though it takes no time at all to thumbs up a page or stumble away from it, the content can make a big difference to what action the user will take.

Green Thumbs

These examples will give you an idea of content that will perform well with StumbleUpon’s user base.

1. Lists and effort. People on StumbleUpon love lists, it’s no secret. If the SU users notice that you took the time to create content worthy of reading, most of them will give you the thumbs up.

2. Use the strange and bizarre to your benefit. Found someone selling something crazy on eBay? Why not write up a post relating it to social media and submit it to StumbleUpon. You will be surprised at how many SU users like to read this type of content.

3. Something new and informative. The best way to possibly captivate SU users is by giving them something they have not seen yet. A good “How-To” on something that hasn’t been covered a thousand times is most likely going to perform well. Give useful advice and users will reward your effort to share.

4. Above the fold link bait. Throw in a catchy title with a flashy image and most of SU will take a gander. If the content is worthy, you’ll be seeing green thumbs in no time! BONUS: Hot chicks work awesome on sites like StumbleUpon.

We’re Not Worthy!

While these types of content may not totally suck, its best to stray away from them and use these types in a hail marry situation were you are low on ideas.

1. Irrelevant or overly personal posts. Most people on StumbleUpon are not going to care what you had for dinner last night. Sometimes its best to only submit content to StumbleUpon that works well with your niche and try not to alienate your possible new users.

2. Link dumps. Throwing together a list of links with a couple sentences explaining them will not do much for SU traffic. Think logically here, you may be low on ideas but these are people already sorting through random content. When they stumble to your page and find a bunch of links to other content sources chances are they won’t give your page the time of day unless its crafted extremely well and includes plenty of information.

3. No substance included. Your eight sentence post on why tying shoes is fun will be skipped over faster than the fat kid in dodge ball. Your content must include not only a topic, but tips and advice. An easy way to make sure you include this in every post is to develop your own template for creating content or make a theme prevalent in the post.

There you have it folks. Like most social media the key idea to success is creating real content. Many “SEOs” have a problem with this because they are used to creating automated traffic through the use of SERPS. Practice writing content in different ways using these tips to see what works best for you.

Still can’t make any money on Facebook? Stop crying I’m here to save the day, unfortunately it must be your own fault at this point. Here’s nine reasons why you probably aren’t making buku bucks with Facebook yet.

1. You don’t do any testing. Before you go and sink $100 in to your first campaign, take the time to do some real research. Get in the habit of fine tuning your demographics and research the groups you will be targeting. A simple $10 test can tell you whether or not an offer will sink or swim (or just float even) so why not make the extra effort? Being a lazy tool will not help you in this part.

2. You set it and forget it. Facebook is not a rotisserie oven people… Your ad performance will change throughout the day much more erratically than with most services such as AdWords and TLA. Slowing down your ads during the day and pushing them during the night for instance seems to make better money. Why pay they same amount for clicks during the day if they do not convert as well? Simply lowering your CPC earlier in the day can save you a lot of money in wasted clicks but still allows for some people to click through.

3. You think you know everything. If you do, comment on why you are reading this? I would say I can make a nice buck or two on Facebook and I am still finding new quirks and trends withing Facebook Ads on a daily basis. Read all of the information you can find on Facebook’s Ad Manager and benefit from it.

4. You don’t learn from your mistakes. Any entrepreneur can tell you they have made mistakes. The difference between someone who makes it in this industry and those who don’t are the ones who learn from their (few) mistakes. It’s very easy to go from making $3,000 a day on Facebook to waking up and being $1,000 in the hole for the day because you decided not to read that e-mail about various campaigns ending. Stay sharp and don’t be discouraged by failed attempts.

5. You have no originality. Sure you can sit back and copy everyone from the ad board and probably make some money at it too. However this tactic is not only dirty and time consuming, but if you put the effort into generating your own ideas you would probably make a hell of a lot more cake. My word of advice on this one, be the leader not the follower.

6. You have no fall back strategy. Someone has copied your current Facebook campaigns and you only made $500 for the day compared to your average $2,500. What’s your next move? If you cannot answer that question and have no fall back campaigns ready, expect the money to zoom right by you. Always be prepared for the worst and know how you’re going to respond in these situations by keeping fresh ideas waiting in the wing.

7. You are not aggressive / decisive enough. When it comes down to it, you have to get your hands dirty. I can give you page after page of awesome material to help you but you are the only one who can use it. Sitting back and running your 2 ads a day will not do much if anything for you on Facebook. Change shit up and make your decisions wisely. While acting on impulse can sometimes bring you lucky money, its educated decisions that will make you long term money.

8. You are to afraid to front. The thing with making money is that most of the time you have to spend money to make it. Until you can be comfortable with the fact that you might loose every penny you throw into a campaign, you should not fuck with Facebook. The traffic moves very fast and your daily budget can rocket during the day. Point one is a great example of how to prevent loss of your cash. Facebook is one of the more volatile markets and your money can do a 360 by sun up to sun down. If you don’t have your full confidence in what your doing, you may wan to question yourself why you are doing it.

9. You ain’t got them bommmb cuts. If you have not used NeverBlueAds on Facebook you are most likely loosing out on some good money. They offer a lot of offers that are like crack on Facebook and they always have good pay out. Don’t get me wrong, there are deffinantly other networks for use on Facebook but a lot of my money comes from NBA. Shop around for different affiliate networks to see what offers they have. Chances are you will find some good offers on a number of networks that you otherwise would never have known about.

Many people seem to believe that Social Media traffic is not worth it’s weight because it doesn’t pan out over long periods of time. While Social Media traffic does flow differently, the key is learning how to retain this traffic and turn people into come back customers. Planning out your social media campaign is an important step to insuring the best possible growth.

SERPs & Search Traffic – When it comes to this category, you are looking for long term organic growth. Search engine results are not going to appear over night for your site (in most cases) so its important to stay at it. Stay active on relevant sites and work on building links back to your content. Sooner or later it will gain traction and people will start linking you. This does however imply that you took the time to create content worth linking.

RSS Subscribers – One of the best strategies for retaining social media traffic is pushing them to your RSS feed. The easier you make it to find and sign up, the better. Offer multiple options such as feed and e-mail features, as well as direction. Notice a high volume of traffic coming from a certain social media site? Throw up a welcome message reminding them to subscribe to your site.

Remember To Brand Yourself – If you are marketing a blog you are essentially selling yourself to the masses. Continue to write how you normally would and include your thoughts and persona in your post. People are reading your blog because they like something that your doing… Changing your style can push avid readers from the site. For businesses, creating a strong sense of community is your goal. Make visitors feel at home instead of making them feel like they are reading information on a faceless corporation. Become the leader in your niche by creating content that sets you apart from the rest.

Sustaining Traffic – After a while you will notice that traffic builds up and at some point becomes steady. This is a key point in time where you must make the most effort. You may be running low on ideas but making it through this hump and continuing to create content will allow continuous growth and organic link development. Constantly striving to push the bar will insure that you will always have traffic.

This should help you with some ideas if you feel stuck. Overall the biggest task is putting yourself out there for people to find. Social media can be much more than a short-term traffic boost, it comes down to knowing how you can retain the traffic.

That’s right I said it, your a tool Twitter… When Twitter came out I didn’t really see the appeal. It may seem a little pointless especially with the advanced text messaging you can do with cell phones. But of course I ended up creating an account (smmguru) and I can already tell how useful it would be to some people.

Now keep in mind that in order for Twitter to be of any use your account will have to have some level of followers… If no one is reading your tweets then you cant expect much. I only have around 30 + followers so the traffic is nothing special (about 40 hits a day.) However if you take in to account what a base of 3K followers does to your visibility, you can easily push decent traffic that also tends to convert well in terms of subscribers. The trends I’m seeing is that many see large increases in RSS subscribers when they receive visibility on Twitter.

To start off, find some people on Twitter that fit into the overall topic of your blog. In the next step you can take two very different paths:

1) You can continue to follow people relevant in your niche and keep your follow list shortened to people you actually want to see tweets from. Pick this option if you plan on using the service for something more than getting as much visibility as you can from it. This will give you visibility but your followers will be much more organic and build up slower.

2) You follow every person you can find relevant, and continue to follow everyone that they are following so on and so forth. This will totally work but it will take some time to kick in. As long as you post quality tweets the visibility of being on all of those people’s pages will draw new followers. The more people that can find you, the better your chances.

Once you have all of your followers it’s time to start pushing links. There are a number of different plugins for auto-updating your Twitter page with new posts from WordPress. There are also various Twitter clients for the iPhone, BlackBerry, Mac, and Windows desktop applications. Give it a try, chances are if you put some work in you shouldn’t have any problems.