How to generate traffic to your website fast using social media networking

One of the fastest ways to generate traffic is get to know the most popular or the powerful people in the social networking community. Find out below how easy this is to do online by using a few simple techniques. Do you remember the commercial .. “When Meryl Lynch Speaks…..Everyone Listens” ? People in prominent places are already favored by others in the community.  Why? Well quite simply, when important people talk, others listen. These people can easily popularize discussions or other people. Every social network website is the same. There are always a few individuals who stand out, because they have expertise, and have gained trust and support of like-minded users. These people are the ones you want to influence.

Influencing Other Users of Social Media:

You will find that Social media comes in many forms of websites, from bookmarking communities to video channels and networking sites like Facebook. The main focus of this post on social news sites like Digg, Reddit or Propeller. This will apply to other social media websites as well. This article will give you hints on how to develop your own strategy for targeting, connecting with and piggybacking off the influence of popular social media users. Take what is here and throw it on any social website. It’ll fit.

Social Media Marketing for Community News Websites

Social news/voting sites are community sites which allow the audience to determine the value of the content through the use of up or down votes. Within these communities, there are several active individuals which are well connected with other users and in tune with the preferences of the community in question. Social media marketers have long pursued two main strategies for success on social news sites like Digg and they have worked without fail for a long time. These two main strategies are as follows:

1. Become the Influencer. This entails building up a legitimate social media power account and gradually developing clout within the community. It involves actively participating in the community with the goal of ultimately developing authority and influence. This time consuming process allows you to easily increase the potential for success across the board.
2. Develop a Network. Gradually build a network of social media supporters; people who will vote up your content or share it with other friends. This is often practiced by bloggers in their bid to dominate social media attention via coordinated voting. This can backfire if the social media community or algorithm is sophisticated enough to detect artificial behavioral patterns.

In contrast, the third method (which is the topic of this article) is more simple and yet equally effective. It also requires less resources and time, thereby allowing you to target multiple social media websites at once.

How to Influence Popular Social Media Users

If will want to contact other bloggers or journalists for a link or mention, you can most certainly pitch social media users. The aim of introducing yourself and your content to the social media user is simple: you want to leverage their influence by getting him or her to promote your website or content within the community of users. This is rather similar to the process of getting links from popular blogs and it can definitely be achieved with some initial effort of your own. I have done this several times and it is something anyone can do with some instruction. In my opinion, there are three main phases for the entire process:

1. Targeting. At this stage, you’ll have to pick several social media users you want to build a relationship with. Ideally, these selected individuals should have degree or clout while being possibly interested in your material. They should be reachable via various communication channels.
2. Networking. This is the point where you’ll make first contact with the social media user and start to develop some sort of friendly relationship with him or her. The goal is here is to ultimately convert the user into a supporter of your content. This is a crucial stage and tact or people skills are needed for success.
3. Pitching. This is the last stage and will begin when you start to pitch the social media user for the first time. You should be confident that the user will not reject your content because you’ve taken out most of the guesswork through the two earlier stages. This phase should be continued by the continual maintenance of the established relationship.

The three steps above are sequential are should be followed in the right order, unless you have a source that can introduce you directly to the perfect social media user for your site.

1. Targeting: Finding the Right Social Media User

The more your content fits with the social media influencer’s interests or profile, the more likely they will promote it. I cannot stress the importance of relevance, Let’s do some examples:

Ways to Find the Right Social Media Users There are two ways to find the right social user that fits your content. One is to examine any public user ranking list in order to determine who has influence. Visit each profile on the ranking list and check out their submissions in order to get a feel on what topic interests them.

An alternative would be to do a simple keyword search on the social media site to find which specific users frequently submit content of a certain nature.

For example, let’s do a search on blogs’ on Digg and limit the search to frontpage stories. You’ll get a list of popular items with the keyword in the title. Check out each user to see if he or she normally submits content of this nature. More often than not, if someone has promoted content for a specific nature, he or she will be more open to suggestions on similar content. Alternatively, do a URL search for a popular site in your niche. This will also give you an indication of which users will possibly favor your site (if it covers the same content), although other factors like

content quality or brand strength will still apply.   Try searching  for “buy investment house”, for example.  After you’ve spend some time researching the social site, you’ll develop a clear understanding about what works for which user. Using the social site yourself will also allow you to really appreciate how users perceive or use the community. You’ll discover little quirks about each social media user and easily discover patterns in their behavior.

 

2. Networking: First Contact and Relationship Building

After you’ve decided who you want to target for the specific social website, you’ll need to get in touch with them and start developing a working relationship. The first important step is to touch base with the user and establish first contact. If the user’s contact details are publicly shown, you can either send him or her an email or get in touch through internet messengers. You can also register as a user within the specific social site, although some sites limit direct contact to mutual friends only. If the contact details are not listed, you might want to do a quick google search for the username to see if it is listed elsewhere. Some information you should look for:

• The user’s personal blog or website
• Publicly declared contact details for the user
• Profiles that the user has for other social media websites

It is important to find this information because all of them are access channels which will allow you to not only get in touch with the specific influencer but to deepen your relationship with them

Networking Guidelines and Suggestions

After finding the specific contact details, you should initiate a conversation of some sort with the specific user. There are many ways to do this and I highly recommend just sending them a note just to say hi and to thank them for their contributions. Immediately asking them to promote your content is very poor form and may make you look like a spammer. Stand out from the rest of the self-interested crowd by simply introducing yourself and showing your appreciation for their contributions. If they use internet messengers, hit them up for a chat in order to better understand what sort of interests they personally have. A good conversation piece would be the social website in question and how they use it. Have a genuine interest in them. Feel free share your thoughts and engage them in dialog on common interests. You should do this continuously until you feel that you have a good grasp of what material the user is likely to support. It is also important to do favors for the user by giving them publicity or links to free resources and interesting content (not your own). Do not offer monetary compensation at this stage as it will easily sour the relationship.

Mutually Beneficial Relationships are Key: One Golden Rule to Follow

It is important to network with the end of a mutually beneficial relationship in mind. True social media users are always interested in buzz-worthy news or ideas, particularly when it bolsters their own authority within the social media community. This is essentially the golden rule to follow: Your content and whatever else you offer must not only meet the integrity of their personal brand, but it should improve it, along with the user’s popularity or position within the community. Some top Digg users have a real interest in providing content that pleases the audience. They do spend time and effort in looking for new Digg-worthy material, another reason why they may at least be partially susceptible or open to your pitch, particularly if your content is fantastic and 100% relevant to their interests. Offer them free invites to unrelated websites, give away exclusive information on certain topics. Share some links to excellent websites. Do little favors without asking for anything in return at all. Give them a reason to be interested in you. Networking is really just about making friends. It’s that simple. This will gradually lead you into the third and final stage: Pitching the influencer.

3. Getting the Influencer to Promote Your Content

After you’ve successfully completed the earlier two stages, it’s finally time to start pitching the user. Your end goal is to get the influencer to support your content by sharing it with the community. Some suggestions on how to proceed:

1. Ask Casually. Do your pitching in a light hearted and casual manner and do not aggressively push the user to promote your content. This is a huge turnoff and you should understand that the user has a perfect right to refuse you.
2. Disclose Your affiliation. I would recommend letting the user know that you are affiliated with the specific website, particularly if you plan to have a long working relationship with the user. He or she will appreciate your honesty and it will also make it easier for you to ask the second time round.
3. Space out your pitches. The biggest mistake you can make is to ask the influencer to promote every single piece of content that comes out on your site. This is a major irritant so only offer the user your best work, while pitching your material only once per week or every two weeks.

After you’ve successfully gotten the influencer to promote your website, you should continue close contact, whenever possible. If you’ve developed a very close and friendly relationship with the users, you might even want to consider co-opting them completely by eventually offering financial compensation. This is a very tricky scenario and one you can only pursue when you are very confident that the offer will not be offensive and is something in line with the influencer’s goals or interests. You also want to make sure that the social community’s TOS does not forbid the user from making money through his or her contributions.

Step by Step Checklist to Follow

Here’s a quick checklist of steps to follow. Remember that these steps are sequential and should be completed one after the other.

1. Pick several social media users who might be interested in your content. Make sure that they have some influence or clout in the community.
2. Confirm that your content is relevant to their publicly declared or observable interests by studying their usage of the social site.
3. Make first contact with the user by sending a ‘hello’ or ‘thank you’ email/message while introducing yourself.
4. Gradually develop a relationship by talking about common interests or the social community.
5. Do some small favors for the user, but do not ask for reciprocation of any sort. Avoid pitching the user at this point.
6. After determining that your content is a perfect fit with the user and perfectly understanding the interests of the user, make your first pitch.
7. If successful, continue to pitch the user but do it infrequently and only for excellent content. If unsuccessful, pull back a little and re-pitch after some time has passed.
8. Deepen your relationship with the user till the point where he or she will automatically monitor and share your content with the community or when its legitimately possible to co-opt the user by offering compensation.

And there you have it, a complete guide on how to leverage the influence and popularity of social media users, in order to benefit your own website or business.

Relax. It’s Just Some Heavy Duty Networking

What is interesting about this method is that there is nothing sneaky or illicit about it. You’re not violating any Terms of Service nor are you lying or misrepresenting yourself or your business. This is simply traditional power networking. Public relations agents do favors and offer exclusive news or benefits in order to set up journalists who may choose to write about their clients in the future. Journalists network with their assets in order to get insider information for their stories. Salesmen or women (e.g. insurance agents) will acquire contacts and persistently build up relationships in order to get leads for possible sales. If you don’t have the time or interest in developing a strong social media profile and you can’t seem to build up a network of like-minded supporters, try this powerful method of pitching influential people in social media communities. It works tremendously well and is a great social media marketing strategy that will allow you to easily acquire traffic and attention for your content or business.