So lately, I’ve been messing around with a few of the major social networking sites trying to figure out which ones would be best worth investing my time in to.  The bottom line is there are just way too many social networking sites out there and unfortunately with my limited amount of time, I’m finding it very time consuming to try and be active on multiple ones.

So far, here’s what I’m thinking, and the purpose of this post is to hopefully get your guys opinions on which ones you are using, as if most of you aren’t using certain ones, there isn’t much of a reason for me to use them!

There are two different reasons to use social media sites.  The first one would be to share information about yourself, sites like myspace and facebook allow you to do this by putting in all of your information, what school(s) you’ve attended, your job, etc.  Basically services like these two allow you to share information that you’re willing to share.

The second reason I see using a social networking site would be to actually…urrrr…well…network!  Now I believe I have this one covered.  I believe that currently the most effective one for doing that would be twitter.  It’s simple, easy to use, catching on very quickly, and growing tremendously!  It allows you to chat with others, send out blog updates, and more all very quickly from multiple update sources like text messaging, iPhone applications, or directly from twitter’s website.

The major problem I’m having I guess is which other social media site to use, I’m not a huge fan of friendfeed because I don’t have a ton of social sites I need to turn into one feed which from what I understand is pretty much what friendfeed does.  Myspace reminds me too much of little kids and tweens and it’s spamtastic!

Facebook, would seem like the best choice, however, the only problem I really have with facebook is that it seems like you’re constantly doing status updates which is what you’re doing on twitter, so why do it on facebook as well?

Then I thought I could just have facebook have all my information and use it for photos, but honestly…I don’t really take photos too much business wise, and I have gallery2 installed on this blog for the little amount of pics I do take.  So that leaves just information……

So is that what most of you are doing?  Simply putting in your information into facebook and then just using it as a place for people to find out about you?   Then instead of using their status update features or whatever, are you simply using a service like twitter?

Anyways, I’d love to know which services you guys are using and how your using them!  Thanks in advance!

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This is a guest post written by Mike Huang, the original founder of Bloggin-Ads and now a team member of a growing arcade site, Pinky Arcade where you play games and win prizes daily!

Hey fellow readers of Click Consultants.  Some of you may not know me or remember me, but I’m Mike Huang, the original founder of Bloggin-Ads.com.  Some of you may have hated me, some of you may have liked me, but after leaving blogging, I have gone off in learning new things.  However, even leaving the blogosphere, it never stops me from re-visiting my favorite blogs through my feed reader.  I still like to catch up on things once in a while and have also been watching how Twitter is growing even bigger.

Just this past week, there were a few blogs that talked about Twitter, but was it something good about Twitter?  If you have scoured the blogosphere, you would have probably noticed Zac Johnson’s post on how Britney Spears is now a Twitter fan.  Some of you may like that idea that big celebrities like Britney is not Twittering, but fans of Twitter, Mostly Lisa is simply hating the idea that Twitter now is another home of Britney.  Lisa believes that Twitter was just used for geeky thoughts, but what do you think of that?

Twitter, like any other social network, is a social network period.  If you have a blog, then you have probably tried big networks like Stumble Upon or Digg.  They’re just filled with bots, spams, and worthless information that you could probably find better by just searching Google.  Some may disagree with that statement and I won’t doubt that, but what would Twitter be like in the near future?  Twitter already has so many extra tools to optimize the usage of it, but is that 140 character limit really stopping anyone from taking advantage of the system?

Just a few days ago, John wrote a post on how to “Twitter your e-mail newsletter” and that just sickens me that more tools are being used on Twitter’s little character cap.  For example, if one of your Twitter followers and long time blog readers did not subscribe to your newsletter for a reason, what would make you think they would want to see it on Twitter?  To me it just seems like another way to spam, but of course it’s not direct spam.

Twitter is a great social system, yes, but would it just turn into one of those tools that bloggers use to spread all those useless messages and posts around?  It sure is starting to seem like it to me.  I miss the old days of Twitter where you could just see simple tweets of what one of your followers are doing rather than see a “link” in almost every single one of the tweets.

This is a guest post written by Mike Huang, the original founder of Bloggin-Ads and now a team member of a growing arcade site, Pinky Arcade where you play games and win prizes daily!

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Signing up for a Twitter account is fairly easy, you enter in a few pieces of personal (and not so personal) information, verify your email, and BAM! you’re good to go!  Building a profile that people want to follow is a different story! It’s something that you must learn as a marketer in order to use Twitter to it’s fullest potential.  Having a Twitter following is invaluable to your business for numerous reasons!

Why do I need to build my Twitter following?

• Twitter users are by far (from my data) the best type of social media traffic that you can receive.  As I mentioned in my last post, about twitter becoming more mainstream, twitter users stay on pages longer and convert into readers more.
• It’s very easy for Twitter users to share your stuff.  It simply takes one button on Twitter, the retweet button, and your blog post or story has not only been shared with your followers but also with anyone’s followers that have retweeted your tweet.  Because it’s so easy for users to hit the retweet button, twitter users seem to be more willing to share people’s blog posts and such if they like it.

So now that you know the two main reasons Twitter is an invaluable service, the next question obviously is how do I build a following like you are talking about?  A following that will share my blog posts, stories, product launches, or whatever else I need to get out there to potential clients, readers, etc.

Hopefully, I can shed light on a few things that I’ve found that work for me.  Of course all niches and circumstances are different so some of these, all of these, or none of these may work for your individual needs!

Twitter is a Community!

The first thing you need to realize about Twitter is that it’s a community.  It’s made up of people that follow you and people that you follow.  If you want people to follow you back or share your information with their friends you need to build up a reputation within your community.  The ONLY way to do this is to participate in your community, and by participating I don’t mean sending a tweet out each time you want to promote yourself!  You must be active in your twitter community and make an effort to tweet with others, share whats going on in your life, and share great stories (not yours) with the people following you.

Show You Care!

There is no other way to show people how much you don’t care about your Twitter profile than to leave your picture the default avatar.  Your avatar needs to define you, add to your personality, and allow others to see you for who you really are.  I know what you’re thinking…a picture can do all that?  Of course it can!  Think of the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words”.  This is true even on Twitter!  Be unique and find, take (don’t steal), or create a picture that shows the world a little piece of who you are!

Use Your Profile Page to Your Advantage!

People love finding out information about people…especially when it’s people who’s blog they read, talk to online, or become friends with on social media sites.  If you’re not using your Twitter profile page as a way to share yourself, your business, etc. with the people following you or the people that stumble across your profile then you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

It also goes back to making sure that people understand that you care about your profile and about Twitter, by saying that you took enough time out of your busy schedule to make your profile unique, just like you did with your avatar!  People appreciate this!  I know I do!

Below is a picture of what my profile page on twitter looks like…

As you can see from the screenshot above, I’m attempting to do several things here.  The first thing you should notice is the Click Consultants black and orange “C”.  The reason I used this “C” is because of advertising I’ve done in the past and currently for this blog.  People have come to realize it as part of the Click Consultants site even if the word Click Consultants isn’t mentioned.

However, I haven’t actually put my picture out there a lot and also many people may not realize that mystickcal is the name that I go by online as I don’t use that persona on Click Consultants like I do the rest of the internet.

Basically I want to make sure people realize who I am one way or another, whether it’s from the black and orange letter C, my picture, or my name and the best way to do that is to include them all.  It’s part of building my personal brand along with my company brand.

Another thing I use my profile page for is to let people know a little about me.  My little blurb reads…

I am a regular guy who just happens to make a lot of money online through affiliate marketing.  You can contact me through twitter or the following:

Basically, I wanted people to realize two things about me right off the bat…First off, that I’m a regular guy just like them and as such, I can be approached just like a regular guy.  Secondly, I wanted people to realize that while I’m a regular guy, I do make a lot of money online through affiliate marketing and as such my information about affiliate marketing can be trusted. (I know just by saying that it does mean it can be, but with all the rest of my stuff out there, it only adds to it)

The last thing I do on my profile page is make it very easy to people to contact me and I believe this is very important as well.  I give people the following options, I tell them they can contact me via twitter, AIM (aol instant messenger), my blog (Click Consultants), or by Email.  Not only do I give people all these ways of contacting me, but these are actually my main ways.  mystickcal is my main AIM screen name that I’m on most.  derek at clickconsultants dot com is my main email address.

What I’m trying to say is that not only do I give people plenty of ways to contact me, but I actually mean it!  Do you?  This goes back to are you a part of your Twitter community!

Wrap Up

This post has increasingly grew in size from when I first started out with the idea and brainstormed and while that’s okay, I didn’t get to touch on a couple more points to increase followers that I really wanted to touch on.  So, make sure you subscribe to click consultants because I’ll definitely be doing a follow up post to this one shortly.  Whether it’s tomorrow or a week from tomorrow, I’ll definitely be touching on Twitter again here shortly!

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As you can see from the graph above, Twitter has continued to grow from half a million unique visitors a month to around three and a half million unique visitors a month according to Compete (I know Compete isn’t 100% accurate).  Another interesting fact about this graph is that it’s only talking about people that actually visit twitter.com and not all the people out there that are using Twitter applications like Twhirl or TweetDeck to manage, read, and post tweets.

So what exactly do I mean by the title of this post?  It’s simple really….Twitter, in my opinion, is starting to break out into the mainstream…No longer is it a tool or service that the tech savvy are using.  More people are starting to understand it’s uses, functions, and helpfulness.  I only believe this will continue to be the case and before long twitter will become an extremely powerful tool (not that it isn’t already!) to reach out to your visitors.  So what does this mean for you?

This means that now is the time to get yourself a Twitter Account, if you don’t already have one, and start building a network of your friends, peers, and readers that can help promote your content to their friends, peers, and readers!

I know…here’s what you’re thinking…

Derek, I’m signed up with several other Social Media sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, and Facebook…Why do I need to sign up with Twitter as well?  This is actually quite simple to answer… Twitters traffic is golden, it converts well and twitter users stick around unlike most other Social Media traffic.  They become avid readers, subscribe to your RSS Feed and Newsletters, and more!  Want proof?

• Shoemoney wrote a great post talking about the traffic that he was receiving after using Twitter for four months and how the quality of the traffic was.  It beat out his Organic Results traffic in terms of quality!!!

• Click Consultants last month had 371 visits from Twitter (Yes I know that’s not tons, but I’ve only started recently using Twitter myself), average time spent on this site was 3mins 19secs, and each person viewed an average of 2.78 pageviews.

As you can see, the traffic from twitter is something that, in my experience, no other social media site or service has been able to provide me or others in this field.

So if you aren’t using Twitter, you need to sign up today and get moving.  If you are using Twitter, make sure that you are working on building your profile up, getting followers, etc.  How you ask?  I’ll be talking about this in my next post so make sure you subscribe to my RSS Feed so you don’t miss it!

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This is a guest post written by Mike.  Mike Smith is a regular guy who designs blogs for a living at Blog Theme Machine and is currently trying to shift into a full time social media marketing career through his website iamMikeSmith where he blogs about social media, marketing and blogging.

Stumble Upon can be a beautiful thing, especially when used by the right affiliate marketers, for the right reasons. Some people over-do it and abuse the system, but when it’s done right, its a piece of artwork. For those of you reading this blog right now that want to diversify your income streams and learn how to leverage social media websites like Stumble Upon for your affiliate marketing needs, this post is going to cover it all for you.

I’ve compiled 7 must read reasons why you, as an affiliate marketer should use stumble upon. In the end, it’s up to you to follow the road to added exposure and profits, but if you do read the reasons below and put them into practice, you’ll be improving your affiliate marketing profits in no time.

For those of you who already leverage social media websites for your affiliate marketing, drop a comment below and let us know. And for those of you reading this who think that mass spam to 1,000+ people is the right way, please leave now and never come back

1. Networking – Affiliate marketers tend to stick to themselves or a real close knit group of people and like to keep their secret niches to themselves. But by leveraging your network on stumble upon, you can gain some added thumbs up to your articles (tip – don’t network with other affiliate marketers or else they might steal your ideas haha).
2. Watching trends – Always wanting to stay ahead of the curve is a great way to run your affiliate marketing business and stumble upon is great for that. Check out the stumble upon tag page and see recently hot tags as well as the all time hot tags. Click the tag and see what websites and topics are hot in that area and start an affiliate campaign on the ones you think would be profitable.
3. Targeted (FREE) traffic – You use PPC because it’s targeted traffic. If you’re a blogger, you buy ads on other peoples websites because they’re in the same niche as yours and the traffic is targeted. Why wouldn’t you want the free, targeted traffic that stumble upon can send you? One article I wrote on my blog has received over 100,000 unique visitors in the past month, all because the post went popular.
4. Watching competitors – Keep your friends close and your enemies closer right? Well, with social media sites like Stumble upon, you can see what your competitors are doing. When you’re logged into your account, you can search a specific topic and find sites related to them. You’ll stumble across some genuine sites that are built by passionate people in that niche, but a lot of them are definitely affiliate marketers websites. Find out what they’re doing, see how many reviews they’re articles got on stumble upon and build your site 10X better
5. Increase influence – Do you run a lot of campaigns in the same niche? Stumble them all and increase your influence over what the people searching for your niche find when they click the search button. Instead of only having 1 page for them to see, try getting 10 in there. If you’re a blogger as well, you could also get more reach by getting popular on stumble upon and gain the exposure and traffic benefits like I mentioned above.
6. Quickly test niches – Got a niche you’d like to test out but not sure if dumping 200-300 dollars into it is worth it? Stumble your page and shoot a message to some of your network in stumble upon asking them to review it. If they like it, you get two positive results; you get their thumbs up vote which helps get it exposed to more visitors and you also get the possible sale from the original network people you sent it to.
7. SEO benefits – I am not sure I’ve seen other people mention this before, but I know for the few posts on my blogs I’ve had hit the popular page on stumble upon, it’s also done crazy things for my rankings in google. All for the low, low price of ZERO and usually in far less time then it would normally take to rank for the keywords I’m #2 and #6 for

Still wondering if stumble upon is worth your time? Well, go sign up, put these things into practice and if it doesn’t work well over the next week or two, come back here, cuss me out and let me know how much of an idiot I am. But I doubt that will happen, because I, as well as many others have seen the benefits that stumble upon and other social media websites can bring.

If you liked this article, would you like me to run through other social media websites like Twitter, Delicious, Reddit, ect? Drop a comment and let me know and if Derek approves of it, I’ll write up some follow up articles for you.

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