StumbleUpon, Digg, and Others

Social bookmarking started on very small sites several years ago, but they eventually took off when sites like Digg and StumbleUpon brought the technique to the mainstream internet.  These sites allow users to post links to sites they like, vote on sites that others post, and browse through the favorites of other people.  In essense, you’re sharing your favorite bookmarks with the world instead of just keeping them on your computer.

Because these sites allow practically indescriminate linking, you can add your own sites and vote for them - but there’s a catch.  Because sites are user-moderated, they’re going to get lost in the shuffle quickly if no one else votes for them.  It takes a pretty hefty number of votes to really get a site noticed, so if your site isn’t very interesting, it’s probably not going to get very many votes, which means it’s not going to get a lot of traffic.

One important aspect of marketing on social bookmarking sites is making friends.  Most social bookmarking sites let you have a small to moderate-sized list of friends whose links you can vote for.  If they see you voting for their links relatively often, they just might be willing to vote for yours.  Plus, if you manage to become friends with some “super users” - their votes count more than regular users.  (Note: this doesn’t apply to ALL social bookmarking sites, just some.)  Super users are basically regular users who have done a LOT of voting and have a good mix between their positive and negative votes.

One word of caution: don’t bookmark a ton of pages from the same site on the same account.  This can appear to be spammy to the sites and get you banned, and it’s also rumored to be problematic with regards to search engines who might also feel you are spamming.  Spread links out over multiple accounts, or just stick to bookmarking your very best articles and pages.

Marketing on Facebook

Facebook is a social network.  A social network is a website with various features that allow people to connect, network, and socialize.  Generally you get to have a profile, add photos, and chat with other users.  There may be additional features that let you create groups or clubs, manage events, and send messages to your friends.

Facebook is undoubtedly the best social network for marketers at the moment.  Facebook is much more lenient about marketing than other social networks, and if you are careful and you follow their rules, you can get a lot of quality traffic from them.  They have a massive number of users that is growing very rapidly, and the overall quality of the site and its visitors is quite high.

Marketing on Facebook (and other social networks) requires a lot of real interaction and socializing in order to be truly successful.  You can’t just make a huge friends list and spam the heck out of them and expect to see good results.  For one thing, you will probably get banned very quickly like this.  While Facebook is more friendly to marketers than other social networks, they can’t allow rampant, blatant spamming or no one would use their network!  For another thing, the best results come from people who actually trust you, because they will be much more likely to buy the things you recommend if they like you and they feel like they know you personally.

Groups are a very important part of marketing on Facebook.  You should join several groups in your niche, and ideally start one of your own.  While joining groups that already have a lot of members is great, nothing beats having the control of running your  own.  When you run your own group, no one can moderate you as long as you stick to Facebook’s rules, which means you can market in any way you choose.

Writing Effective Articles

If you want to make the most out of your article marketing efforts, then you need to be writing the most effective articles possible.  It’s not enough to simply write an article about a particular topic.  You need to write an article that is useful and interesting, but also leaves the reader writing more (which you will provide for them with a link to your site.)

Let’s say you have a website about acne.  You might write an article called “5 Common Acne Treatments”.  But you don’t want to discuss the most effective option, because then the reader will have no reason to visit your website.  What you would want to do is talk about 5 common treatments that aren’t always particularly effective.  You might talk about washing the face with soap, using pimple creams, different types of medicated pads, etc.  Then in your bio box you might put something like, “Have you tried all of these treatments but nothing has worked?  Get the dish on the most effective acne treatment available at www.YourAcneTreatmentSite.com!”

This method is very powerful, because you’ve established with the article that you know something about the topic, but you haven’t given them that big solution they are looking for.  The solution is only found at your site.  The article should be useful, especially for someone who hasn’t yet tried one of the 5 methods you outlined, but the main solution fo the problem should not be included.

The main purpose of an article is generally to get people to click the link in your bio box.  If the article doesn’t accomplish this, it will be useful only as a backlink.  If you want your articles to be as effective as possible at generating traffic, you need to be sure to write articles that get people to read them, but require them to visit your website to get the ultimate solution.