It’s true. Social Media is just an excuse for us to justify our aimlessly surfing the internet for hours and hours. I’m convinced its a conspiracy by those who want us to waste as much time as we can so we can go days without accomplishing anything.
I keep hearing from Social Media experts that you build your credibility and find new clients by commenting on other people’s blogs and forums. You start out by doing a Google Blog Search forkeywords related to your niche. Next you dig through the search results to find related blogs. Before you know it you’ve spent an hour sampling other blogs looking for something to comment on.
Finally you find a good blog and make your comment. Then back to the Google search results to find more related sites. You find a good article on one site and make a comment. That article leads you to another great site with relevant content. You spend an hour or so reading articles on that wesite which leads you to more articles on another blog. You make some comments on that blog which leads you to another blog from someone’s comment.
And then you realize you just spent 2 hours reading and commenting on blogs and news sites. Next you log into your Facebook account to see what your friends are up to. Your inbox is filled with messages from your "friends" who posted self promotions on your wall. Facebook is getting worse than the spam in your inbox. You get distracted playing on Facebook for a couple of hours and you realize you forgot to eat lunch.
After lunch you check your email and find more messages from friends. You spend 20 minutes deleting those messages and you’re Google Alert notifies you of a new blog post. You jump on that blog to make the first comment and spend another hour reading other blogs.
Does this sound familiar? It has to be a conspiracy but I haven’t figured out their motive other than to make us waste our time.
Sphere: Related ContentI’ve been learning about web 2.0 and playing around with it for about 2 years now. It is a really effective tool for building relationships, attracting clients, and driving traffic to your blogs and websites. My business is booming and i have a steady stream of leads coming in daily. The downside, it can be a full time job being "social". If I spend 40 hours a week building relationships online, when do I have time to do the work for my clients? When do I have time for myself? I’m working at least 6 days a week right now and spending at least 12 hours each day in front of my computer. Although I love playing with technology and new sites on the internet, this isn’t the perfect lifestyle I wanted to create.
I found a great blog post today Chris Garrett’s blog at http://www.chrisg.com/need-digg-power-account/ that discusses the obsession with trying to dominate the social media pages. It’s very difficult and time consuming to get a post on the first page of Digg or del.icio.us. It’s even harder to stay at the top over time. Chris reitterates the fact the you shouldn’t worry about dominating the social media sites. Just focus on creating high quality content that helps your prospects and customers and the social media gurus will find you.
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You’ve found a list of blogs in your niche and you’re ready to start commenting to build a relationship with their readers. How do you know if this is a good blog to comment on? There are a number of factors that determine if this is the right blog for you to comment on.
1. How many other people are commenting on this blog? If nobody else is commenting on the blog then it’s not a popular blog so don’t waste your time. If there are a few comments, try adding your two cents and see what happens.
2. How much traffic does this blog get? Go to Alexa.com and enter the URL of the blog to see how popular this blog is. Look for blogs with low Alexa rankings. The lower the better and you want to comment on blogs that are in the top 100,000 if possible. You can download a toolbar for your browser that makes this easy. I use the Firefox Addon Search Status which gives me instant traffic results at the bottom of my browser window. There’s also a toolbar for Internet Explorer that works well. Check out Alexa.com for the right toolbar for your browser.
3. What is the Google PageRank of the blog you want to comment on? You want to comment on blogs that have a high Google PageRank which means the site is considered to have high quality content in Google’s eyes. Making comments on high PageRank sites will also improve your website or blog’s Google ranking. You can download the Google Toolbar to determine the PageRank of the website or blog you’re visiting. The Search Status Addon for Firefox provides both Google Page Rank and the Alexa rating in one tool.
4. When you find a popular blog to comment on, read the blog posts and the quality of the comments. Do you want to be associated with this crowd? Don’t comment on a popular blog that you can’t relate to. If you’re a management consultant looking to connect with C level executives, commenting on a blog that’s popular with 20-something programmers won’t help you. Your comments will go over their head and their comments will be in lingo that you don’t understand. Look for blogs with comments coming from your target audience.
5. Remember to read past posts and comments so you get into the flow of the conversation. You want to continue that existing conversation and add value to the conversation. You don’t have to agree with what’s being said and it’s okay to state an oposing opinion. If fact, being controversial is a good way to attract attention.
6. Be professional and be honest. Don’t try to be someone you’re not when commenting on blogs because people will read right through you. Remember that you’re trying to build long-term relationships with these readers so they’ll visit your blog or website so they’ll hire you or buy your products.
7. Remember to always use your real name when commenting and add your URL to the comment form. If you don’t feel comfortable using your real name and URL then you shouldn’t be posting on that blog.
8. Don’t try to sell your product or services in your comments. Just continue the existing conversation and answer questions or add value that demonstrates your expertise.
9. Don’t add your website URL in the comment. It’s okay to add a URL to another website that adds value to the conversation but promoting your own website will turn people off. It is okay to direct them to your website if you’re directing them directly to an article you wrote that solves their problem.
10. Find a few quality blogs and websites and participate on a regular basis so you build a relationship with the readers. It’s better to focus your effort on 2 or 3 high quality blogs then to spread yourself over 20 blogs where you’re only making a few comments.
Follow these steps and you’ll have traffic to your blog or website in no time. Remember it’s all about continuing the existing conversation and adding high quality comments that demonstrate your knowledge and expertise.
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Web 2.0 websites
www.blogrush.com
Social Bookmarking sites
del.icio.us
ma.gnolia.com
Social networking sites
News/Article submission sites
www.bloglines.com
Video/slide submission sites
Podcasting sites
www.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/On_the_Web/Podcasts/Directories
podcasts.yahoo.com
Miscellaneous sites
