nickyjameson.com — My take on Copywriting,Technology and Social Media.

13 Linked In Tactics for Driving Traffic

by Nicky on February 1, 2010

in Business Success Tips, Social Media Networking

How well are you using LinkedIn as a social networking tool? With Social Media now playing a part in your personal as well as business branding it is important to use your social networking platforms effectively. That includes driving traffic to your blog, website or landing page. While most know that social networking platforms like Linked In can drive traffic they don’t always set them up to make the most of them. Here are 13 tips for driving more traffic with Linked In.

1. Always check the Expertise Requests option in your profile.

2. Complete your profile as thoroughly as possible, and include interests, a recent photo, and business information.

3. Connect with as many business associates as you can – they will help you to network with like minded individuals and companies.

4. Ask questions.

5. Answer questions. Answering thoroughly, expertly and frequently will help you gain other users’ confidence.

6. Check your home page on LinkedIn often. It often contains industry updates, news, and postings from other members.

7. Be sure to explain your work experience in as much detail as possible. Don’t just list employers or experience, expand upon it by showing others’ what you’ve done in detail and the results you achieved.

8. Comment in the discussion forums as much as you can so your profile gets noticed.

9. Update your status with useful content and information as much as possible. You can now incorporate Twitter statuses.

10. Use keywords keywords in both your profile and your content, so that your information comes up in search engine results. This is a very powerful aspect of Linked In.

11. Always include your LinkedIn profile link on your other social networks like Twitter, Digg, and other social media websites.

12. Have a plan in place when you begin to build your network, otherwise you may end up getting some contacts you don’t want, and not enough of the ones you do.

13. Customize your public profile’s URL so it’s easier to link this to other pages. It also makes it easier for people to remember it.

These are only a few of the tips you can use to both build your profile and your traffic with LinkedIn.

Tagged as: business branding, linked in, LinkedIn, personal branding, social networking, socialmedia

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Which Social Networking Platform is Best?

by Nicky on January 18, 2010

in Social Media Networking

I have been experimenting with a couple of Social Networking platforms to get an idea of what’s out there. It should come as no surprise to learn there are several hundred, if not thousands of social networking solutions. To test fairly and thoroughly you’d need to set each social network up fully, populate it with content, set your membership levels and market it, in order to bring in people and grow it. More on that a little later, however I thought I’d share my thoughts on what I’ve looked at so far.

My findings are a summary and my opinions… the strength of any social network is the community that evolves and grows around it as well as the content. If you opt to have a forum or group set up, then having users generate content is a must.

Social Sam: A Private Social Network Membership Site for Business

The first social networking site I signed up for is called Social Sam. Social Sam markets itself as a private social membership site, or Networking Membership Software. It’s key differentiator is that it’s designed from the outset to enable people to make money from their social network, unlike most other social membership sites where making money is an afterthought at best, limited, or simply frowned upon. It didn’t take me long to set up a bare bones social network on SocialSam. Because the platform was new (they launched in June of last year and I signed up in August or thereabouts) they were still building and fixing bugs. When I signed up I was incredibly excited. There is no denying that Social Sam is one of the least inexpensive to set up and get going with. It is less complicated than Ning, and also geared towards businesses. It was created by George Tran who created 1Shopping Cart. It starts at $8.00 monthly for 0-100 members rising the more members you have after which you pay a percentage per member.

Some of what Social Sam includes:

Forums and discussion groups
Recurring billing options
e-course content distribution
An article management system
A content management system
A shopping cart system
A streaming video training section and support.

and so much more. Frankly, compared to several others I looked at, it’s the most robust and… dare I say it inexpensive solution at least initially. The most attractive thing about it was its focus on business – and social media. It had social currency as one of the foundational drivers, which I thought set it apart from many.

Why bother looking at other solutions?

That’s what I did. Why? A few reasons which, in the big scheme of things, might not seem that great but mattered to me at least at the time.

I got tired of the bugs. Because it hadn’t been long since it had launched, I found the system very buggy and after a while just got fed up with them, even though the forum was quite good at looking into them.

I found the interface annoyingly clunky and hard to navigate and set up. The content needed editing in several places, and even though I was only paying $8/month I found it grated. It always felt as if everything had been rushed out really quickly.

It was hard to interface between SocialSam.com and SocialSam.net (the support area).

It wasn’t obvious how to import my existing blog into the SS network and many other things couldn’t be imported either. That mean I’d have to recreate blogs and keep everything within the network.

You couldn’t import (as far as I was aware) your existing social network members from Facebook, LinkedIn or even your list. That wasn’t such a biggie, but it did make it feel as if integration (which is what social networking is partly about) was low down on the list.

None of the above was enough to completely discourage me though. It was something else entirely.

Now, to be fair Social Sam does offer a consulting option. For $500 Social Sam offers you a consultant to work with you to get your foundational network set up and running. I almost took up the offer, but declined at the last minute. Reason – I didn’t feel I was clear enough about my strategy for the network. And I hadn’t sorted out who was going to create the content on an ongoing basis. Unless that is clear, I felt there was a risk of setting it up and leaving it.

Second Thoughts

What made think twice about Social Sam (and stop my building of my network on the platform) was the membership billing option.

It was great that had one. In fact, that was one of the main reasons I signed up. The problem was that to use PayPal with the membership site, it was going to cost me $60/month just for that, because it required another PayPal option. In my opinion $60/month just for the billing (until you have a few thousand members) was a bit more than I was prepared to pay. It turned me right off because I felt this should have been upfront, you only find out about it when you go to set up the recurring billing option.

Good, Bad or Indifferent?

I may still continue with Social Sam. It’s not particularly pretty (you have to add that yourself) and I couldn’t get them to show me relevant examples of sites built with it for inspiration but if you are looking for a social membership networking site, it’s worth checking out. And if it’s less hassle to set up and looks less clunky I might well come stay with them. For now I am still undecided. Paying the consulting option didn’t faze me as much as the $60/month recurring billing cost I’d have to pay. Of course, you’d have to build that cost into what you charge your members at the higher levels of membership, however it would still be a loss leader for some time and so I had to rethink. Oh, and the affiliate option wasn’t working when they said it was… right now it’s coming soon. This review is my own by the way…as are all unless I say otherwise.

Social Networking isn’t free

Don’t expect any decent social network platform to be free…most of the good ones come with a price tag of sorts. If you’re looking for free stick with Ning. Even Facebook is going to be charging soon. Given some of the stories about Ning and user content, I’d be wary of any social network where you don’t have total control over your content. With Social Sam at least you have that, plus you can even sell content on your site.

Social Sam has a lot going for it, and is probably worth a second look. And let’s not forget that building any social network takes a large investment of time, which I don’t have a lot of at the moment. I am considering two other social networking platforms. I’ll write more on them later.

Tagged as: monetized social networks, Social Media Networking, social networking, socialsam, what's the best social network

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Tips For A Successful Social Network

by Nicky on January 4, 2010

in Social Media Networking

In my last post I outlined some of the steps you need to take if you’re thinking of building your own social membership site or social network. They include thinking about your target audience, how you’ll meet their needs the content you’ll be providing and more. Interest in building a private social network is only going to increase in 2010. I normally avoid all the crystal ball pronouncements common at the end and beginning of a New Year, however the other day I did I comment on an interesting prediction blog post by Daniel Levis called 5 Bold Marketing Predictions for 2010. The move to private social networks is already underway. I suspect has been quietly going on for some time.

For one thing, people are getting weary of the restrictions of some of the current social networks, or, in some cases, the loosening of restrictions, (such as privacy in the case of Facebook). Many are also weary of the social media noise…and the seeming need to clone oneself so you’re on every social network there is. I know some people who are closing their twitter accounts and narrowing down where they spend their time. And of course there is always the niggling doubt as to who actually will own your content, since platform owners can (and often do) change the TOS at the drop of a hat leaving your hard earned effort and members in their hands and not yours. People (particularly older people) want to create social networks without the hype and with like minds

Going Niche

It’s going to be a question of niche social networks and membership sites. Sites are going to need to be very narrow to be successful. The only way to be completely in control, is to well, be completely in control of everything. That comes qt a price, but it might be one worth paying.

It’s The Content

Whether you have a social networking site or one combined with a membership component content will make or break it. Doesn’t matter how new-fangled the techie stuff, content (quality, not tat) is still the undisputed King. Which brings me to my next point – content creation. I blogged my last post on Ecademy and had an interesting comment from a member who has built a successful social networking site.

Vanessa Warwick makes some points worth keeping in mind, summarised here:

Groundswell and Seeding

You need groundswell to start a social networking site. This groundswell consists of people who know you and care enough about you to come to your site and fuel it with their content. They are the seed members and they are critical. You need to create them if you don’t have them and you must nurture them once you find them. Vanessa says she and her husband built their network for 4 years before launching their social networking site. Something to ponder. While you may not have to wait that long, and you may have a network of a couple of hundred people already – you do need seed members to get the ball rolling and you need to keep up the momentum until it’s rolling by itself.

You need to keep the content fresh and interesting. I’m going to go into this in more detail in a later post, however this will be the killer for most social networking and membership sites. Content has to be consistent, high quality and updated regularly. If it isn’t your social network will die as quickly as it sprang up. And if you are charging members, you have to make sure the content meets their high expectations. Vanessa says of her social site…

“Our site constantly updates with new posts and comments which keeps it fresh and interesting and, most importantly, relevant. That in turn keeps people coming back. It builds momentum as more people join and contribute, but you definitely need a few hardcore members to help that happen.
Content is definitely king as it earns people’s continued attention.”

Key thing to note: the members provide the content, through their postings comments, groups, sharing. In fact you have the crown jewel of social networking… user generated content. The effort it takes to keep that constant shouldn’t be underestimated.

A membership site is slightly different in that you might get people to contribute via a forum or in groups. Either way, most people in a social network want to converse, learn and connect with each other over common aims and ideals. They do it through content.

Making it Pay

Vanessa’s social network is on Ning. She’s been able to make money from the Ning platform (which is free) through paid sponsorship and two levels of membership. As I mentioned in my last post, you must have a model for how your social network is going to make money – even if it’s on a free platform.

I checked out Vanessa’s social network forum, it’s called Property Tribes and she noted in her comment that it launched last May with little advertising. It’s very active – and probably a social networker’s dream. You can see it here:

Property Tribes

Which Platform?

I’ve narrowed down my potential social networking platforms to 1. It isn’t Ning, though I know there are hundreds of social networks on Ning and I’m a member of a few of them. For reason’s I’ll mention later it will also probably be more a membership model than pure social networking… but that’s still under consideration. In a couple of posts or so I’ll let you know which platforms I’ve personally considered and my thoughts on each.

Thanks to Vanessa Warwick for sharing her insightful comment with me on Ecademy.

Comments, thoughts welcome… especially if you’ve set up or are thinking of setting up a social networking/membership site.