1-9-2008 How to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

With 1.4 blogs being created every second of every day, how can a blogger break away from the noise and gain some attention? It is not nearly as complex as it may seem. The first step is to decide who you want to speak with and what you want to say; why are you writing your blog? Your goal is to create a community that nurtures conversations. Although technology enables online communities, it is content, connections and the overall spirit of the community that will draw the right people to your blog.

Community in the age of social media isn’t about putting the message out there, it’s about conversation. Understanding your audience isn’t done through a sit down strategy session or focus group, it’s about listening to your audience tell you who they are and what they care about.

People find content through sources they trust. These sources can range from online news sources, to blogs, and their peers. Especially their peers!!

According to a new research report, “Engaging Advocates through Search and Social Media,” released in December 2006 by Yahoo! and comScore Networks, not only is social networking’s influence on marketing growing, but particularly vocal individuals are having more of an effect than ever.

Dubbed “Brand Advocates,” these are consumers who spread opinions via word of mouth, as well as over social networks, instant messaging, chat, photo sites and blogging. Such advocates have at least at least a two-to-one rate of converting an actual friend or family member to buy the same exact product or brand they support, according to the report.

Source: http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3624182

Network of Networks Social media is about interacting with community, more importantly a relevant and influential community.

It’s also about spreading conversations throughout the web to increase relevant visibility. We call this engaging the “Network of Networks.” Each of these communities has different cultures and rules as to how they communicate. Each social networking site is it’s own community. A person can be a member of more than one at a time. This enables a person to integrate knowledge and gain access to talent across multiple communities.

People are part of multiple communities!!!

Distribution of Content The smallest unit of media sharing is the link. Whether it’s a forum message, a photograph, a video, or a podcast, if there isn’t a unique link for each piece of content, there is no sharing.

Every bit of content should ideally have a constant, human readable, link that users can send to others.

Providing users with widgets lets them embed content, profile information, or other bits of functionality from your website creates value for your users while also creating visibility for your social network.

Take advantage of content creation on other social networks. The quintessential example: Flickr Make sharing part of the culture of your network!

The Impact of Social Media on Search Results Google’s stated goal: To organize the worlds information.

Google’s goal in action: To match the most relevant information with the people who are searching for it.

Traditional SEO techniques still apply for optimizing organic search! However Google’s SERP (Search Engine Results Page) is now a much more crowded place that combines content optimized through different strategies.

Results are showing up from:
• Blogs – A frequently updated web journal
• Del.icio.us – User centric bookmarking and social discover
• Digg – “wisdom of the crowds” source for popular news
• Stumbleupon – Web site rating and social discovery based on past browsing history of the network
• Photos - Flickr, Photobucket
• Video - Youtube, Metacafe, Break
• Podcasts - Audio distributed across the web, and niche oriented
• Twitter/Microblogs – up to the minute bite sized notifications from your network
• Wikipedia – Collaboratively created information resource with high SEO, and a culture that often successfully keeps SEO strategists at bay
• Yelp, CitySearch - User generated and social review sites that frequently rank high in search

Google is embracing the networks of trust and social relevancy being created by Social Media through various initiatives.

Roadmap for Creating a Thriving Online Community
1. Creating Compelling Content

2. Be yourself – People want to connect with others of like minds. They are not seeking out more marketing or sales pitches.

3. Be conversational - Blogging is about starting or joining conversations. People tend to respond better to informative but brief and passionate posts.

4. Stay on topic – You get to set the tone of your social network. You are the hosts of your site. It is important that the conversations stay focused on what the site is here to provide. You can provide additional information and value by providing links to external sites.

5. Add multimedia - Adding pictures enhances the experience of each post. You can set up a Flickr pool to simplify the process of sharing pictures within your posts as well as on various other sites. Videos provide an additional level of entertainment and brings the story to life. You can set up a YouTube channel and embed videos into all of your other various networks. Sites like Flickr and YouTube enable you to spread your content to various networks.

6. Link to other relevant conversations - In any good conversation, people speak, listen and respond. Blogging on the site is equivalent to speaking. Reading other relevant blogs is equivalent to listening. Linking to other relevant blog posts is equivalent to a virtual handshake and a response. As you read individual blogs that are relevant and of interest to you, pay attention to where they link within their posts and look for a blogroll. These are the roadmaps to the people you want to know and who want to know you.

7. Tagging – Almost all social media sites have tags. Tags are a way to categorize the content. Tags are very powerful within social networks because it provides the community with a way to link to others with shared interest. Use relevant tags and use many tags. The best practice is to start with the general category such as Dining or Sports and then add tags based on the details of the content such as location, event, date, notable people, and so forth.

8. Titles – Since people typically are scanning through content to see what captures their attention, it is very important that your content has relevant and enticing titles. Try to keep your audience in mind when writing a title. When they read the title of your post they are asking themselves “what’s in it for me? Why should I invest time in this post?” So the title must answer the “what’s in it for me?” question.

Some ideas include:
1. List Posts
2. How To Posts
3. What Do You Think?

9. Frequency of Post - It is important for your time management as well as for creating trusting relationships that you decide the frequency that best fits you. If you start off with several posts a week and develop a following, and then slack off for a couple of weeks, you will lose that following. It is OK if you can only post once a week. The key is to set expectations that your audience can depend on and stay consistent.

To many, social media seems overwhelming. There are so many tools to learn, so much content to filter through. The reality is social media makes life richer and much more efficient, once a person takes the time to learn how to navigate and begins to make friends with the natives.

Sherry Heyl

Sherry Heyl is the CEO and Idealist for What a Concept, the first social media agency in the Southeast. Her responsibilities include business development and collaborating with clients to develop online communities of raving fans by integrating streaming video, blogs, podcasts, RSS, and virtual worlds into communication plans for B2B, B2C, Non-profit and Higher Education organizations. Sherry has been recognized as a thought leader in social and collaborative technologies and trends through invitations to speak for many varied associations, conferences, and private events.

She was a key organizer of SoCon07, the first Social Media un-conference in Metro Atlanta and is currently planning SoCon08. Sherry sits on the board of the Atlanta Electronic Commerce Forum as the Programs Director, the board AiMA leading Association Partnerships and the National Advisory Board for KSU Communication Department. Sherry was a 2007 Nominee for the Women in Technology Woman of the Year Award. Sherry is a graduate of Florida State University with undergraduate degrees in Marketing and Creative Writing.

www.empoweringconcepts.net sherryheyl@gmail.com