"Social media" describes the online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives and media itself.
Social media can take many different forms, including text, images,audio, and video. These sites typically use technologies such as blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs to allow users to interact.
A few prominent examples of social media applications are:-
- Wikipedia (reference),
- MySpace (social networking),
- Gather.com (socialnetworking),
- YouTube (video sharing),
- Second Life (virtual reality),
- Digg (news sharing),
- Flickr (photo sharing) and
- Miniclip (game sharing)
- Blogtv, Justin.tv, and Ustream (livecasting),
- Stickham, YourTrumanShow (episodic online video),
- Izimi and Pownce (media sharing),
- del.icio.us (bookmarking) and
- World of Warcraft (online gaming)."
Social Media Sites
any media that invites interaction
ex:-blogs, MySpace, Facebook, wikis, discussion boards
Social Networking Sites
social media for which the goal is real world contact
ex:-MySpace, Facebook
When you create a profile, link, tag, article or other content on a social media website, other people from that website can view it. If they are interested in what you have to say, they will click through to your website.
In this way, you will gain organic traffic from your social media activities.That is, real people will view your social media pages, absorb your messages, visit your web sites and become your customers, fans and subscribers.
Every time you create content on a social media website that links back to you website, the search engines see that link. Every time the search engines see a link to your site,When the search engines think your site is important, they will make your listing appear higher in the results. These are called backlinks, and the more you have, the better.
So, you will benefit from social media by both the real people who visit your site from the links you leave all over the internet, but also from increased search engine rank from those backlinks.
Communities are the goal, conversations are the verb.
Share a little information on the differences between social media sites.
Digg
Unquestionably the powerhouse traffic driver of them all, Digg traffic on the surface is actually not usually the kind of traffic that converts into subscribers, customers, or ad-clickers (unless you write about Digg topic favorites such as Google, Wii, Apple, and Macs).
Grow a thick skin because Digg users are notoriously cruel commenters. The Digg crowd tends to be younger and male, and sometimes less than mature (though they do surprise me with their intelligence and wittiness from time to time
Digg traffic comes in a big burst and dies out quickly - so it’s not going to put you on the map unless you can continue to write good content.
Beware of MFD (Made For Digg) posts that can get rather addicting - the traffic is nice, but your own audience needs to come first.
Lastly, I thought I had Digg pretty much figured out - and only had hopes of Digg success on very rare posts (as a mom blogger!). But when my post about Keeping Kids Busy on Summer Break got to the front page yesterday, I can only say that there is always another (extremely surprising) road to success.
StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is really the raving favorite of most bloggers I know. The traffic can come in tens of thousands, the ‘Stumbers’ are genuinely nice people, and the system is somehow set up to continue to send traffic to popular posts for weeks.
StumbleUpon traffic tends to bring longer-term benefits such as subscribers, repeat visitors and customers. This is because the StumbleUpon algorithm is set up so that users will only see pages they have previously expressed an interest in learning more about, or are recommended by friends.
Beware of abusing the system - if you keep ‘Stumbling’ your own site, after a while you’ll reach your quota. Be sure to both participate in the community and share other great finds to get the best benefits and add the most value.
Netscape
Netscape users tend to be mostly interested in politics and traditional news stories. Their topic categories rather defy logic, as there isn’t even a business section.
Your topic can influence your Netscape success tremendously - Dan from AskDanAndJennifer.com reports results up to 2500% higher than what I have seen from the site.
del.icio.us
del.icio.us is slightly different than the others in that the bookmarking features are a bit less social than on the other sites.
Frankly, I’ve only had success on this site as a carry-over from getting onto the front page of Digg or Netscape - so I’m no expert on what it takes to master the process here.
I love using del.icio.us simply as my own bookmarking site - so the added benefit of organizing your favorite resources easily in one place makes it one to use for other reasons besides driving traffic.
Since the social web allows you to interact with others, create and promote content that can get links and viral attraction, you can - with the right strategy - reach key influencers using this medium.
Social Media Optimization is one of the most common methods for getting significant exposure for bloggers. Sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Delicious are constantly sending large volumes of traffic to submissions that are the most popular with users.
An effective Social Media Marketing plan can help to take a blog from nowhere to being well-known in a short amount of time. However, social media isn’t a good fit for every blog, and not all bloggers choose to participate. For those who would rather draw traffic in other ways, there are some traffic sources that are capable of giving you the same type of exposure as a front page appearance on a major social media site.
In this post we’ll look at five ways that bloggers can quickly gain tremendous exposure without social media, and without paying for any advertising. Just like social media, these methods won’t be for everyone either, but you may find something that fits very well for your niche and for your audience.
