Hello again, my social networking friend!

Many people hope that after starting their website off it will eventually sell itself. This is possible, but can be a bit difficult for webmasters to grasp. Then, even after the concept is grasped the goal is still pretty hard to achieve. This method will involve a lot of skills when it comes to social networking, and social marketing. So without delving into an elaborate guide without any prior knowledge of social networking, check out these great guides from some of my favorite sites.

1. It Takes a Gathering to Build a Crowd | ProBlogger
   Learn how to get a following on social networking sites like digg.
2. Relationships and Online Social Networks | DoshDosh
   Learn about getting to know your contacts on social networking sites like Twitter and Plurk.
3. These guides don’t cover everything there is to know about social networking, but if you’d like to learn more then you’re only a google search away. Try “how to market using social networking“.

The theory is, that if you have quite a few followers on quite a few social networking websites, and you can figure out how to interlink them all together then you’ll have a self marketing site. Articles will get to the front page of multiple social networking sites, and you will only need to submit to one of them in order to do that. For Example: If you were to submit to Digg, your activity would be updated on your Jaiku profile, and you would get visitors from there as well. A marketing guru I know is putting this theory to the test, and trying to maximize on its effect with his new site Badoozie. With his viral content, and loads of much-needed experience in marketing I’m sure that this site will be successful.

The same goes with your blog posts, you can set things up so whenever you post it automatically notifies social networking sites you are a member of. Sites like Technorati, and other pinging sites are the most basic of information sharing websites. The biggest difference between Technorati and Digg is that Technorati is a search engine for blog posts, where Digg is a place in which the most popular article succeeds (with the right push).

This is the subscribe box at badoozie, optimized so that readers who use social networking sites realize it is easy to submit his articles. One flaw I see is the text Subscribe, which many people still associate with paying for a membership. According to CopyBlogger, you can increase your subscription rate by quite a bit just by altering that text. Try changing the text from Subscribe to something like “Get News from Us By Email“.

The key to social marketing is how you use your words. If you were to do everything in uniform and never do anything new, or say anything new, then what reason would someone have for reading your blog. Even more important, why would they want to share your content with their friends?

A blog without viral content, or proper grammar and punctuation is more than likely never going to get popular. Also, a blog without any content at all is obviously not going to be a good product to market. Wait till you get at least 20-30 posts or so before you start marketing your website. If your first article gets to the front page of digg, most users will think of your site as a probable one-hit-wonder and not subscribe to your RSS.

Once you’ve set your site up to market itself and developed a stable following of loyal readers you won’t need to submit your own articles any more. Your own readers, and friends from the social networking sites your blog is pinging will submit the articles for you. Plus, since you’re automatically pinging sites with the new content on your blogs, you’ll notice a fluctuation of traffic every time you publish a new post.

If you examine some of the sites that are constantly on the front page of digg, and other social networking sites, you’ll see that they’ve put this method to work. Then, you can decide whether or not that type of marketing is write for you and figure out how to do it for your own website!

There are so many websites out their that serve the same purpose as Digg, Twitter, or Pownce.  The question is; which of these websites are actually worth your time?  Of course the biggest sites are your most valuable assets, but there are a few smaller sites that could be useful to you.  Since time is one of the most valuable resources that us humans try to utilize, I’ll explain some of the social media sites that I use and why.  Keep in mind that my views, are my views, and merely suggestions.  If I leave out some social media site that you use, it just means that I don’t use it, and has nothing to do with how great that particular site may be.

• Digg:
  Of course, Digg, the most popular social networking site on the Internet makes this list.  It can be utilized to spread important news to people around the world, bring huge traffic boosts to websites, and meet people with similar interests to yours.  Of course there is much to learn before you can change the world with your submissions, as you can see here.  Aside from my business, and news-sharing reasons for using Digg, I find it one of the most-fun places on the Internet.  Just seeing what people have to say on popular submissions makes me laugh, cry, and wonder about the fate of humanity.

  Level of Social Media Necessity: 10/10 (If you’re going to network socially at one place, and only one place, then do it on Digg)

  • Byproducts and Sites Similar to Digg:
    • Reddit:  Instead of researching, I’m going to guess that Reddit came out before Digg.  Or maybe they were both created at the same time, but that doesn’t change the fact that many articles on the front page of digg, are articles from Reddit submitted a little bit later.  Numerous people have pointed this out to me, but since I don’t use Reddit myself, I wouldn’t really know.  I’m assuming that Reddit will always be #2 to the ever-popular Digg, but they both have loyal users, and similar functions.  If I were to use Reddit, I would use it for the exact same reasons that I use Digg.Level of Social Media Necessity: 9.5/10 (Second choice, if Digg were to blow up for some reason I’d use Reddit)
    • Mixx:  Mixx is one of the newer social media sites, that is obviously inspired by the Godzilla of Social Media (Digg).  Most of the functions, and features are similar, but I prefer Digg.  Despite Mixx being much more feature-rich than Digg, I love the simplicity of Digg’s system.  Or else I’m just to lazy to learn more about Mixx.Level of Social Media Necessity: 6/10 for the average Joe
• Sphinn: Sphinn is basically a Digg for webmasters, so in other words, “this could’ve gone under ‘Byproducts‘ but it’s just so unique”.  So since my site is about social media, marketing, Seo and such, I should probably be using Sphinn to my advantage.  A very wise friend told me about this website, and so I’m going to pretend I’m wise and suggest that you (if you’re a webmaster) use this site to promote your product.  After all, it’s like a Digg where people don’t get mad if you submit your own crappy articles on Black-hat link building tactics. I’ve taken the step of adding a little Sphinn button to each of my posts, but unfortunately the problem remains that I am too lazy to learn more about this website.  In time I will metaphorically have to “Get off of my lazy ass” and start doing some extensive research, but until that time comes I will continue to produce self-mocking post masterpieces.Level of Social Media Necessity: 7/10 (If you’re a webmaster) 2/10 (If you just want to Read stuff that probably shouldn’t concern you?)
• Twitter:  Twitter is a bit of fun, great for updating your followers on what your doing.  The problem with twitter is how hard it is to get followers/friends.  Here’s one of MakiMaki’s posts explaining possible ways to get more twitter followers.  I suppose if you were using twitter the way it’s meant to be used then nobody would be struggling to get thousands of followers.  As far as I’m concerned, Twitter is a dumb way to advertise your site, but a rather good way to update readers on topics like “what the next post will be about” and etc…  I use Twitter, basically because I know a lot of cool people who use it as well, though I’ve found no logical reason to tell people when I’m going to the bathroom like the Twitter Whore.Level of Social Media Necessity: 7/10 (It’s pretty cool…)
  • Byproducts and Sites Similar to Twitter:
    • Pownce:  A feature rich Twitter ‘almost’ clone made by Digg’s own Kevin Rose.  This time I’d actually consider Pownce the more mature micro-blogging tool.  Luckily, Pownce was able to add a bunch of extra features, and without losing any of Twitter’s simplicity.  Though I don’t use Pownce as much as Twitter because, well… Twitter came first.Level of Social Media Necessity: 8/10 (better than the original?!)
    • Plurk:  There was a huge buzz for Plurk not too long ago, and when I could see right when I joined that it could be fun.  Is it a useful tool for webmasters?  Absolutely not, but it’s definitely the most fun you could have micro-blogging.  The layout, and visuals on the site are what really get you sucked in.  Everything just seems to fit into place, and you definitely don’t need guides to figure out how to use it.Level of Social Media Necessity: 1/10 (yea it’s pretty much useless)
      Who do you Turn to When you want to have fun Writing (wtf)?: Plurk

After finally writing all of that down I can officially say I’m sick of writing for the night.  It took me a couple of hours just to write down some of my feelings on a few popular social media site that I (have) used.  That means I really need sleep, or some other activity to help me unwind :O.  Remember, just before I publish this article… If I didn’t list the social bookmarking site you use, it sucks (jk ).