Well, yeah, it does. But only to the extent that you’re interested in search engine rankings and organic traffic. Some of the social bookmarking sites carry a pretty heavy weight, and are definitely worth the link juice you’d be getting were you so fortunate to get a link from them. (Not that it’s that hard…) 

Others, such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious and others are valuable despite the nofollow tag they append to your links simply because there exists the possibility of immense traffic from them should your content become popular on these sites.

So what it boils down to is this: you need to decide as part of your social media marketing strategy which of these social bookmarking sites you want to go after, and do so aggressively. Half measures count for next to nothing here. We’ll talk tomorrow about just what I mean when I say “aggressively”. There are ways to be aggressive without getting yourself in hot water, and we’ll talk about those.

~Keith

Choosing the specific web properties you’d like to implement for your social media marketing strategy can be a confusing and time-munching matter. There are literally thousands of Web 2.0 sites out there, each purporting to be exactly what you need. So, as I said in a previous post, you need to be really clear about what it is exactly you’re after. Then you have a basis for choosing dance partners!

First, you need to be pretty plugged in if you’re doing this yourself. many times people come to social marketing thinking they’ll just get themselves a Facebook or MySpace account and everyone will simply rush right over after they see they’re there. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Just the fact you’re reading this is a great start, and there are many more voices that can shed light on the ever-changing landscape of social media. For me, I start my day by logging into my Google Reader and checking out the feeds of the various sources I listen to, and I have subscribed to a few! (You want to limit this to whatever number doesn’t keep you glued there all day!)

Now that you have an ongoing education in what’s hot and what’s not, you can begin to choose. Remember not only your goals and objectives, but what exactly will be the return for that investment? You can spend months building up thousands of friends and followers on some of the social networking sites, but if your goal is search engine traffic then you need to know that Google and others don’t give link credit from sites like Facebook, MySpace and others. So what is their value then? Their value lies in getting people excited enough about you that they’ll click through your profile to your website, where the fun can begin! And yes, you can gently massage them in that direction!

If your goals lie more in the direction of search engine rankings and traffic, you’ll be examining sites with a whole different set of eyes. You want sites that give live, followed links, that are very social, and that are getting lots of attention from the search powers that be. (Namely Google) These sites come and go all the time, but there are some that have lasted a while and are proving their worth to those who know how to use them, such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Tumblr and others.

There’s a lot to consider when choosing sites for your social media marketing arsenal; make sure you come to the table armed with all the knowledge you can!

Next time we’ll talk about the methods you use, and what you need to have done for you.

~Keith

There’s little doubt that it’s very possible to unleash a slew of social media traffic upon your site or blogs, and that begs the question, have you strategized a plan for all those marveleous visitors?

There would be no greater waste of time in my mind than to do all the work necessary to get this onslaught of traffic, and then not having a way to take advantage of it. Whether your intent is to sell something right from your page, collect leads, use advertising like Google Adsense, you need to know this going in and have your page set up for this purpose. Don’t try and ride too many horses at once, either! A page that asks for an opt-in, while promoting their latest ebook, surrounded by four sets of Adsense ads and banners promoting several different affiliate products is suffering from a clear lack of focus and identity. Who knows what you really want!

Instead have a plan, focus on it on the page, and reap the benefits that all this social media traffic can bring you!