The popularity of social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Google+ and others is increasing day by day. In fact, it is safe to say that social networking is one of the most effective ways to get traffic to your website.

It is so important to blogging that if you can’t succeed in social networking then you probably won’t succeed in blogging either. Leaving comments and trackbacks-in other words, participating-is an essential part of social networking. So here are some tips to succeed in the social networking arena.

1. Make friends to increase your traffic

Friends are at the heart of social networking, and this is also a valuable part of viral marketing. Generally speaking, the more friends in your network, the greater will be your visibility in promoting.

2. Use blogs to increase your traffic

Remember that blog commenting is a form of network marketing. Most blogs will allow you to post comments and link your site to your name. Whether the comments are follow or nofollow, if your comments are insightful, other readers of the blog may click your link to visit your site.

3. Attach a face to your name

Gravitar is a web-based service (which means it works equally well for Mac or PC users) that allows you to attach an avatar such as your photo to your e-mail address. Many of the blogs you comment on the will recognize this avatar and include it with your comment.

This will be a good opportunity to get your comments posted and more people clicking on your link. Why? Because most spammers don’t take the time to do this. Besides, it’s called social networking, after all. You will be much more social when you put a face to your name.

4. Take full advantage of your profile page

Be sure to fully fill out and customize your profile page. This can greatly increase the visibility of your content. On your profile page, you can link to your other social networking profiles as well as to your personal projects. This accomplishes two things: it increases the number of backlinks for SEO purposes and allows readers of your profile to visit your other pages so you can get more friends.

5. Remember that content is king

Nothing is more important in drawing traffic than content. If you write about interesting subjects and you do it frequently, you will greatly increase your success on the social networking sites. Don’t know what to write about? People seem to like lists. Or you can check Digg.com to see what kind of posts get the most diggs.

6. Provide clip art and screensavers to increase traffic

If you have some talent in this area, then you might try creating clip art, infographics and screensavers. Offering these for free can increase your traffic.

7. Post videos to your profile pages.

Remember that different people have different learning styles. Some people like to read while others prefer watching videos. It is not difficult to create videos for the social networking sites.

Your Mac or PC has a webcam built in. All Macs come with an excellent program called iMovie which is great for the quick creation of videos. You can even repurpose some of the articles you have written by throwing a few images into iMovie while you provide narration by reading the article.

Finally, be sure that you join a few of the more popular social networks. These memberships can feed on each other. As your network on any one site grows, you can invite your friends to join you on the other sites. This can start a chain reaction which will have them inviting their own contacts, and so on. This is viral marketing at its best, so be sure to take advantage of it.

Guest post by: Timothy Arends. You might get the impression that the Mac is the forgotten stepchild of the Internet marketing industry. But did you know that some of the top names in Internet Marketing use Macs? Visit http://www.internetmacmarketing.com/blog and get a FREE 75-page ebook that covers everything you need to know about running your Internet business using a Mac, iPhone and iPad.

Missy Diaz is primarily a freelance writer (and blogger) that offers a popular guest blogging service to website owners. She also creates WordPress powered websites and blogs and is the author of Super Blogga, a fun action packed pocket guide aimed at new blog owners with over 70 bite size tips available as an ebook and on Amazon.
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