The term social media can mean different things depending on who you listen to. Some say it involves user generated content (UGC). Some say it’s all about social bookmarking. Some view social media as a maturing of the internet. Some say it is a waste of time. In the next few articles we will look at some of the top social media sites like Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Twitter, FaceBook, BlogCatalog, and MyBlogLog to understand how they work and how you can use them to get visitor traffic to your website.
You see it doesn’t matter what anyone “says” social media is. What matters is how people are using it and what you can do with it as a marketer. Even if you don’t use every social media site out there, you need to at least know what they are about and how other people are using them. Social media sites are where people are coming together online to interact and that means you have an opportunity to get your website content in front of a bunch of people with little to no cost.
To get us started, here are seven things that social media sites offer people online
- The ability to categorize and bookmark sites
- The ability to share content and resources with others
- The ability to communicate with others directly
- The ability to create personal profiles
- The ability to add user defined tags to content
- The ability to group together by topics of interest
- The ability to rate or rank the quality of content
In our upcoming articles we will examine each of these points as they relate to our chosen social media sites and we will discuss how we can use each of these capabilities to market using social media.
Until then I encourage you to visit Del.icio.us and learn what the site is about. Sign up for a free account and learn how to use the tool on a basic level. By using the tool and seeing how others are using the tool you will be better equipped to understand how it can be used to help you accomplish your marketing goals.
Meet you back here in a few days,
Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com
