Use Social Marketing Sites To Give Your Internet Marketing Start-Up A Helping Hand ByDavid Hurleyin Jerry Bader's Blog While every Internet marketing start-up could benefit from social marketing sites, many newbie Internet marketers are still not sure how to utilize them. Sure, social sites give you a lot of interactivity and allow users to personalize their sites, compile a list of favorite links, videos, music, photos, documents and share it all with friends and visitors, but how exactly does that help you develop your Internet marketing start-up business? The first thing to understand is that there are two basic types of social networking sites, so you will need to be clear in your own mind about what it is you want to do – bookmark or network? Social Bookmarking Sites Social bookmarking sites allow you to build and organize your favourite links (i.e. bookmarks) AND you can choose to restrict them to selected friends or make them public and share them with everybody on the Internet. The big advantage of social bookmarking is that your favourite links are no longer tied to one specific browser accessible from just one computer in one location. Social bookmarking services enable users to save bookmarks on a remote web server which can be accessed anywhere where there is an online connection. Social bookmarking sites usually categorize links with a "tagging" system which allows users to choose keywords with which to "tag" their bookmarks. Sites can then be retrieved via the tags. You can encourage others to bookmark your articles, blogs or webpages by adding a Digg, Stumbleupon, TwitThis or other button on your page. However, there are so many social bookmarking services, that if you added all their buttons you'd end up with more buttons than content on your page! Instead, use a service likeaddthis.com, which places one button on your site for a wide range of social bookmarking sites. Social Networking Sites Social networking sites offer a convenient method of connecting with people who share similar interests to you. Sites like Facebook and MySpace allow you to post your advertisements and promote your products, as long as you do not simply (and stupidly) send out spam. A good site with regularly updated original content will attract traffic. MySpace or Facebook? It has recently been noised abroad that MySpace is no good for Internet marketing, but that is not so. It was simply a case of too many Internet marketers not knowing who their audience was. The point is that MySpace tends to attract a younger age bracket with less money to spend than does Facebook. Get to know the sites and adapt your content to each one, don't simply post the same stuff to both. Another reason why some people don't think social networking sites are good for business is that they do no more than set up a profile. Then they get stuck, don't know what to do, do nothing. Merely being there is not enough! Find ways to communicate with the people who are there on their terms, not yours. Go careful, though, that you don't go overboard with the crazy applications and the "late night partying confessions" stuff if it is not the sort of thing you want your clients to see! Whereas social bookmarking sites are simply sites for you to collect and organize your favorite links, social networking sites, being more sociable, require more time and regular fresh content updates. With social networking sites you have to work on your image! Search Engines Love Web 2:0! Another reason why Internet marketers should build a presence on both social bookmarking and social networking sites is because search engines LOVE them! Search engine spiders regularly follow links posted on these sites. So, by building up your links on these sites, your website backlinks will grow, and so will your search engine rankings, which is what you need if your Internet marketing start-up is to survive, grow and thrive. ...read more

Tinu helps small businesses expand into new markets online via the power of their websites. if you need help getting online visitors to result in offline profits, come to Free Traffic Tips for more help and a free consultation. Pros and Cons of Using RSS Feeds02 2010 Tuesday2 BySharon Housleyin RSS If you are struggling with the decision of whether to implement RSS feeds or not, consider the following pros and cons for webmasters who use RSS feeds as part of their content and communication plan… Benefits (Pros Of Using RSS)The benefits for a webmaster who opts to implement RSS feeds on their website are numerous: 1. Saves Time RSS feeds save time. RSS subscribers can quickly scan RSS feeds, without having to visit each and every website. Subscribers can then click on any items they are interested in, to get additional information. 2. Timely RSS feeds are timely. RSS feeds will automatically update themselves any time new information is posted, so the information your subscribers receive via their RSS reader or news aggregator is timely. 3. Spam Free RSS is free of spam. Subscribers don't have to worry about wading through huge amounts of spam in an attempt to get to the information they are actually interested in. 4. Opt-In The RSS subscriber chooses what they want to see, and what information they wish to receive. Knowing they have full control, and that they do not have to provide any personal information to subscribe, they will be more likely to opt-in. 5. Unsubscribing Is Easy It is also easy to unsubscribe from an RSS feed. If they do not like information contained in an RSS feed, they can simply remove the RSS feed from their RSS reader or news aggregator in order to unsubscribe. 6. Alternate Communication Channel RSS provides you with an alternate communication channel for your business. And the more channels you provide, the more opportunities you have to connect with your customers and potential customers. 7. Expands Audience Through Syndication The very nature of RSS is that it is designed specifically for syndication (i.e. publication by others). And wide-spread syndication can expand a company's reach and strengthen the company brand. 8. Can Increase Backlinks When an RSS feed is syndicated, it can increase the number of links back to the original website. And additional incoming links will often help a website rank better in organic search rankings. 9. Increases Productivity RSS increases productivity, allowing people to quickly scan new posts and headlines, and only clicking through and spending time on the items of interest. 10. Competitive Whether you decide to implement RSS feeds or not, your competitors likely will. So one way to remain competitive is to implement RSS feeds and other web 2.0 technology, and not allow your competition to get ahead of you. Negatives (Cons Against Using RSS) 1. Not Widely Adopted Yet Outside of technical circles, RSS has not yet been widely adopted. While it is becoming more and more popular, it is still far from being a mainstream technology. 2. Content Can Easily Be Copied Content contained in an RSS feed can easily be copied and replicated, regardless of whether you want it to be or not. Few aggregators respect the copyrights of content contained in an RSS feed. 3. Tracking Subscribers Is Difficult It is very difficult to accurately track the number of subscribers who read an RSS feed or the items contained in an RSS feed. This is due in part to the fact that at its heart, RSS is all about achieving the widest syndication possible. 4. Source Origination Difficult It is sometimes difficult to discern the origin of an RSS feed item. When an item is syndicated, the source is not always indicated. The metrics available are not always reflective of the traffic received. Weigh the pros and cons of implementing an RSS feed as a communication channel, and determine whether the benefits outweigh the risks in your own situation. ...read more

If you have a blog, you have an updates feed, most likely in the flavor of RSS feed, but quite possible in Atom feed. This is the file that's linked to the weird-looking orange button you see on many frequently updated websites, such as blogs. These tips apply to both types of feeds. Your feed's job is to talk to other machines about your site on your behalf. Those bot to bot conversations increase your traffic and help more people see your site, either directly through feed reader subscriptions and listings, or indirectly by helping your search rankings. Do at least these basics to take care of your feed. No one loves RSS, okay? I never actually liked it much, but I always understood that it was necessary to grow my site. Stop trying to hug it, and start having a basic understanding of how it helps your business. If you don't have a site newsletter, you can use RSS to make your blog posts into email newsletters, then put the email subscription box at the top right of your site, or otherwise unobtrusively remind people to subscribe. Aweber will create both the newsletter and the web form for you automatically. About once a week, make sure your feed is validating. Sometimes all it takes is a rarely used character in the title to break your feed.FeedValidator.orgwill help you with that for free. Submit your feed to the top RSS search engines and directories. There aren't hundreds of them as there once were, but for the good ones remaining, likeSyndic8, the links can't hurt you. RSS is what helps your site speak to social media sites automatically, but what if you aren't sure what is helping and how often? Try FeedBurner. It's my opinion that the service has been on the decline since Google took it over a year ago, but before you judge by that, take into account the height it was at when the fall began.It's still does a pretty decent job of tracking your traffic, and there's no need to direct ALL your traffic throughFeedBurnerif you don't want to, just use it to track sites that you give permission to repurpose your feed, like Twitter andFacebook. Google Reader. Yes, that's the whole tip. Of the minority of people who use a Feed Reader to follow blogs rather than email, Google Reader is the top choice. Stick the button on your site, glance over your headlines in Google Reader now and again. Wouldn't hurt you to share some items over there too. Should you use full-feeds or partial-feeds? It's a controversial issue. I won't go into as much detail about how my private findings differ wildly from conventional wisdom, just suffice it to say this. My solution with new sites is to offer both, and let readers choose when they come to your site, and allow the short feed to be syndicated by anyone, with a link at the bottom of each short feed post letting readers know you offer full text as well. Learning about RSS may not be as big a deal as it once was, but don't forget that your site's feed is instrumental in helping your site grow. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tinu helps small businesses expand into new markets online via the power of their websites. if you need help getting online visitors to result in offline profits, come to Free Traffic Tips for more help and a free consultation. ...read more