subject: Moving Past the Profile - 5 Easy Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website With Social Media [print this page] Moving Past the Profile - 5 Easy Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website With Social Media
You've made a profile on LinkedIn and Facebook, and you've connected, or 'friended' some colleagues. You've made a few posts about 'what you are doing right now', and read a few friends' comments. Now what? Is that it? Will any of this effort result in traffic to your website, where you are poised to win new business?
Fear not - you are on your way. You have, in effect, 'moved in' to the neighborhood. Now it is time to make some real connections and let your online community know who you are and what you do.
There are numerous ways to build business from social media, all of which originate from the solid establishment of yourself online, and at a minimum, will result in driving traffic to your website. However, before doing any online promotion you will want to (1) ensure that your website is current and (2) that you have set up complete profiles on the social networking sites you participate in (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.). After all, if a prospect lands on your profile page and there is only sparse information about you, and no photo, they aren't likely to feel any connection to you. You should provide as much relevant information about yourself as you can, while bearing in mind that you are posting information for public consumption.
While your profile is your home base on social networking sites, it isn't the only place you will participate online. Here are five easy tips for expanding your reach and driving traffic to your website:.
1. Visit blogs and leave comments
Too busy to have a blog? It's not the only way to 'get in the conversation'. Hopefully, you are reading at least a handful of blogs by others in your industry, or related industries. When you encounter particularly interesting posts, or posts on topics that you are expert in, leave comments. Do you agree? Disagree? Have some additional information to share? Leaving comments is a great way to build traffic to your website, and enables you to make solid contributions about topics you are knowledgeable about. (People who read your comment and find it interesting will want to learn more about you and will visit your site). As always, be careful to only post comments that add value - not simply to promote yourself - or you will damage your credibility.
2. Submit articles to online article directories
Do you currently write short articles for a company newsletter, your website or as a guest expert for local or industry publications? Any articles you have written can and should be submitted to online directories like articlesbase.com, ezinearticles.com and others. These sites offer exponential opportunities for exposure, as your content is made available for publishing by others in their ezines and newsletters, which puts you in front of the readers on those mailing lists. You are directly credited as the author of your articles, and often have the opportunity to publish not only your web address and short bio, but also a photo along with the ability to have your content available as an RSS feed.
3. Upload videos to YouTube, photos to Flickr or Photobucket
YouTube is making a big impact on search engine results, and offers you the opportunity to 'tag' keywords relevant to your video clip for online searches. Create your own channel where you will feature video relevant to your business or users of your products. Can you shoot a video of your products in use? A how-to? Customers sharing creative ways they use your products? Don't worry that you need professionally-shot video; the site was built for the masses to share their footage. Many of the most successful videos on the site are shot with consumer-grade digital cameras. Still images can be posted to Flickr or other photo sharing sites where they are tagged and indexed. Not only does this increase your exposure, but you can import photos from your Flickr account to your website, blog, Twitter feed or other networking sites..
4. Position Yourself as an Industry Expert by Answering Questions
LinkedIn and Yahoo both have 'Answers' areas, where questions are posted by category. Spending just 10 minutes per day reviewing questions in your industry's category can turn up some great opportunities for you to interact with others while spotlighting your expertise. Focus on quality answers; if you are genuine and your answers are solid, people will click through to learn more about you. Be careful to avoid overt self-promotion. Too much self-promotion will lower your credibility and could get you banned.
5. Utilize social bookmarking sites Social bookmarking sites enable you to save and tag bookmarks to other websites. Not only does this help you store, classify, and search your favorite links, but also to share your bookmarks with other Internet users in a collaborative way. Create an account at Digg, Stumbleupon or Delicious and start bookmarking and submitting sites that you feel are great resources or that you enjoy
Now Pay Close Attention --
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